Journal Article

Diagnosing recessions


Abstract: The beginnings and ends of recessions are officially dated about 12 months after the fact. A common rule of thumb declares recessions as two quarters of consecutive negative GDP growth, but this is very inaccurate. A better option is to apply medical diagnostic evaluation methods to the business conditions indexes of the Chicago and Philadelphia Federal Reserve Banks, which suggests the recent recession ended sometime between June and August 2009.

Keywords: Recessions;

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Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Part of Series: FRBSF Economic Letter

Publication Date: 2010

Order Number: 05