How do we know if we're in one?
There is an old joke among economists that states:
A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
A depression is when you lose your job.
The difference between the two terms is not very well understood for one simple reason: There is not a universally agreed upon definition. If you ask 100 different economists to define the terms recession and depression, you would get at least 100 different answers. We have tried to summarize both terms and explain the differences between them in a way that everyone could agree with.
Recession: The Newspaper Definition
The standard newspaper definition of a recession is a decline in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two or more consecutive quarters.
This definition is unpopular for two main reasons. First, this definition does not take into consideration changes in other variables. For example this definition ignores any changes in the unemployment rate or consumer confidence. Second, by using quarterly data this definition makes it difficult to pinpoint when a recession begins or ends. This means that a recession that lasts ten months or less may go undetected.
Recession: The BCDC Definition
The Business Cycle Dating Committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) provides a better way to find out if there is a recession is taking place. This committee determines the amount of business activity in the economy by looking at things like employment, industrial production, real income, and wholesale-retail sales. In addition, the NBER also considers the gross domestic product, which is the reading, most typically associated with a recession in the general public. They define a recession as the time when business activity has reached its peak and starts to fall until the time when business activity bottoms out. When the business activity starts to rise again it is called an expansionary period. By this definition, the average recession lasts about a year.
Depression
Before the Great Depression of the 1930s any downturn in economic activity was referred to as a depression. The term recession was developed in this period to differentiate periods like the 1930s from smaller economic declines that occurred in 1910 and 1913. This leads to the simple definition of a depression as a recession that lasts longer and has a larger decline in business activity.
Difference between Recession and Depression
So how can we tell the difference between a recession and a depression? A good rule of thumb for determining the difference between a recession and a depression is to look at the changes in GNP. A depression is any economic downturn where real GDP declines by more than 10 percent. A recession is an economic downturn that is less severe.
Does US is in Recession or Depression?
The National Bureau of Economic Research(NBER) said Monday that the U.S. has been in a recession since December 2007, NBER did not give any reasons or causes of the recession. But it is widely accepted that the housing downturn, which started in 2006, is a primary cause of the broader economic malaise. The current recession is one of the longest downturns since the Great Depression of the 1930's.
The last two recessions (1990-1991 and 2001) lasted eight months each, and only two of the 10 previous post-Depression downturns lasted as long as a full year, according to the NBER.
Now we would be able to determine the difference between a recession and a depression without resorting to the poor humor of the dismal scientists.
There is an old joke among economists that states:
A recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
A depression is when you lose your job.
The difference between the two terms is not very well understood for one simple reason: There is not a universally agreed upon definition. If you ask 100 different economists to define the terms recession and depression, you would get at least 100 different answers. We have tried to summarize both terms and explain the differences between them in a way that everyone could agree with.
Recession: The Newspaper Definition
The standard newspaper definition of a recession is a decline in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two or more consecutive quarters.
This definition is unpopular for two main reasons. First, this definition does not take into consideration changes in other variables. For example this definition ignores any changes in the unemployment rate or consumer confidence. Second, by using quarterly data this definition makes it difficult to pinpoint when a recession begins or ends. This means that a recession that lasts ten months or less may go undetected.
Recession: The BCDC Definition
The Business Cycle Dating Committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) provides a better way to find out if there is a recession is taking place. This committee determines the amount of business activity in the economy by looking at things like employment, industrial production, real income, and wholesale-retail sales. In addition, the NBER also considers the gross domestic product, which is the reading, most typically associated with a recession in the general public. They define a recession as the time when business activity has reached its peak and starts to fall until the time when business activity bottoms out. When the business activity starts to rise again it is called an expansionary period. By this definition, the average recession lasts about a year.
Depression
Before the Great Depression of the 1930s any downturn in economic activity was referred to as a depression. The term recession was developed in this period to differentiate periods like the 1930s from smaller economic declines that occurred in 1910 and 1913. This leads to the simple definition of a depression as a recession that lasts longer and has a larger decline in business activity.
Difference between Recession and Depression
So how can we tell the difference between a recession and a depression? A good rule of thumb for determining the difference between a recession and a depression is to look at the changes in GNP. A depression is any economic downturn where real GDP declines by more than 10 percent. A recession is an economic downturn that is less severe.
Does US is in Recession or Depression?
The National Bureau of Economic Research(NBER) said Monday that the U.S. has been in a recession since December 2007, NBER did not give any reasons or causes of the recession. But it is widely accepted that the housing downturn, which started in 2006, is a primary cause of the broader economic malaise. The current recession is one of the longest downturns since the Great Depression of the 1930's.
The last two recessions (1990-1991 and 2001) lasted eight months each, and only two of the 10 previous post-Depression downturns lasted as long as a full year, according to the NBER.
Now we would be able to determine the difference between a recession and a depression without resorting to the poor humor of the dismal scientists.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment