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Timing of movement
Peak time when aggregate economic activity stops rising and begins falling Trough time when aggregate economic activity stops falling and begins rising Boom or expansion period when economic activity is rising Recession period when economic activity is falling (at least two consecutive quarters) Turning point - peaks or troughs
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Table 8.1 NBER Business Cycle Turning Points and Durations of Post1854 Business Cycles
Contractions are shorter and further apart as time has progressed. Business cycles are asymmetric. Expansions are much longer than contractions.
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Has the US business cycle become less severe? Figure 8.2 GDP growth, 1960-2009
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Pro-Cyclical, Coincident Variables Industrial production Consumption Business fixed investment Employment These are variables used to classify periods as contractions or expansions.
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The Job Finding Rate and the Job Loss Rate The probability that someone finds or loses a job in a given month changes over time The job finding rate is the probability that someone who is unemployed will find a job during the month, but that probability declines in recessions and increases in expansions
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Figure 8.8 Cyclical behavior of average labor productivity and the real wage
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Labor productivity is pro-cyclical Does labor really become less productive technological regress in recession Labor force utilization Production function Y=AK(uN)(1- ) Labor productivity is Y/N=A(K/N)u(1- )
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Real Wages = MPN A Classical model says that the cyclical behavior of real wages should mirror the cyclical behavior of the marginal product of labor (not average product of labor but they tend to move together) Real wages are slightly pro-cyclical but dont always seem to move with the cycle.
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Summary and Conclusion Business cycles are not regular and are not all alike. Cycles have different lengths and turning points are hard to predict. All variables do not behave exactly the same over each cycle. However, there are regularities we want our models to capture.
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