IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1444.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are Business Cycles Symmetric?

Author

Listed:
  • J. Bradford De Long
  • Lawrence H. Summers

Abstract

This note shows that contrary to widespread belief there is little evidence that the business cycle is asymmetric. Using American data for the pre- and post-war periods and data on five other major OECD nations for the post-war period, we are unable to support the hypothesis that contractions are shorter and sharper than expansions. We conclude that there is not much basis for preferring some version of traditional cyclical techniques to more modern statistical methods.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Bradford De Long & Lawrence H. Summers, 1984. "Are Business Cycles Symmetric?," NBER Working Papers 1444, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1444
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1444.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fair, Ray C, 1985. "Excess Labor and the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 239-245, March.
    2. Robert J. Gordon, 1979. "The "End-of-Expansion" Phenomenon in Short-Run Productivity Behavior," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 10(2), pages 447-462.
    3. Wesley Clair Mitchell, 1927. "Business Cycles: The Problem and Its Setting," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number mitc27-1.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Olivier J. Blanchard & Mark W. Watson, 1986. "Are Business Cycles All Alike?," NBER Chapters, in: The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, pages 123-180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Veaceslav Grigoras & Irina Eusignia Stanciu, 2016. "New evidence on the (de)synchronisation of business cycles: Reshaping the European business cycle," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 147, pages 27-52.
    3. Gittleman, Maury & ten Raa, Thijs & Wolff, Edward N., 2006. "The vintage effect in TFP-growth: An analysis of the age structure of capital," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 306-328, September.
    4. Stéphane Dupraz & Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2019. "A Plucking Model of Business Cycles," NBER Working Papers 26351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Arthur F. Burns, 1969. "The Nature and Causes of Business Cycles," NBER Chapters, in: The Business Cycle in a Changing World, pages 3-53, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Jeremy J. Nalewaik, 2011. "Forecasting recessions using stall speeds," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2011-24, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    7. Galeotti, Marzio & Maccini, Louis J. & Schiantarelli, Fabio, 2005. "Inventories, employment and hours," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 575-600, April.
    8. Edoardo GAFFEO & Ivan PETRELLA & Damjan PFAJFAR & Emiliano SANTORO, 2010. "Reference-dependent preferences and the transmission of monetary policy," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces10.28, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    9. Tamotsu Onozaki, 2018. "Nonlinearity, Bounded Rationality, and Heterogeneity," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-4-431-54971-0, February.
    10. Silva, Aldy Fernandes da & Weffort, Elionor Farah Jreige & Flores, Eduardo da Silva & Silva, Glauco Peres da, 2014. "Gerenciamento de resultados e crises econômicas no mercado de capitais brasileiro," RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas, FGV-EAESP Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (Brazil), vol. 54(3), May.
    11. Sinclair Tara M, 2009. "Asymmetry in the Business Cycle: Friedman's Plucking Model with Correlated Innovations," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-31, December.
    12. Mach Łukasz & Dąbrowski Ireneusz & Wotzka Daria & Frącz Paweł, 2023. "The Identification of Seasonality in the Housing Market Using the X13-ARIMA-SEATS Model," Econometrics. Advances in Applied Data Analysis, Sciendo, vol. 27(4), pages 29-43, December.
    13. Marlon Fritz & Thomas Gries & Yuanhua Feng, 2019. "Growth Trends and Systematic Patterns of Booms and Busts‐Testing 200 Years of Business Cycle Dynamics," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 81(1), pages 62-78, February.
    14. Steven Cook & Alan Speight, 2005. "A deeper look at asymmetries in UK consumers' expenditure: the nonparametric analysis of 100 disaggregates," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(8), pages 893-900.
    15. Pablo Mejía-Reyes & Reyna Vergara-González, 2017. "Are More Severe Recessions Followed by Stronger Early Expansions of Employment in the Mexican States?," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 47(3), pages 243-269, Fall.
    16. Ellen R. Rissman, 1997. "Measuring labor market turbulence," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 21(May), pages 2-14.
    17. Valerie Cerra & Antonio Fatás & Sweta C. Saxena, 2023. "Hysteresis and Business Cycles," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 181-225, March.
    18. Kurt Brännäs & Henry Ohlsson, 1999. "Asymmetric Time Series and Temporal Aggregation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(2), pages 341-344, May.
    19. João Ricardo Faria, 2004. "The Effects Of Taxes On Labour In A Dynamic Efficiency Wage Model," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 55(3), pages 286-297, September.
    20. Amedeo Fossati, 2012. "The Italian Tradition in Public Finance: an Annotated Bibliography of Mauro Fasiani," DEP - series of economic working papers 1/2012, University of Genoa, Research Doctorate in Public Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1444. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.