How can I find out what business cycle our economy is in 2007?

Question

Is this something you can tell by the current year or do you have to wait a few years before actually coming to a conclusion about a certain year? Just curious. Taking economics.

Answer 1

You'd have to wait until at least 2008.

For starters, a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.

If, for instance, we were in the first month of a recession right now, we wouldn't know until at least around October or November, whenever Q3 numbers were announced.

Then those numbers are revised, etc, etc.


To the previous answerers: A recession is NOT "slower growth", a recession is NEGATIVE growth.

Answer 2

You would want to look at the historical trend in gross domestic product (GDP) for the US. The first website listed below is for the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the government agency responsible for monitoring GDP. The next two links are data sheets for total GDP and percentage change in GDP.

According to the data, we are in a recession. If you look at the absolute dollar amount of GDP, you will see that it increases - this is due to inflation and standard growth. However, if you look at the percentage change from the prior period (using excel to graph the data from http://www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdpchg.xls ), you will see that although there are slight up-and-down variations, the economy is not growing as rapidly as in prior years. The overall trend is smaller and smaller growth, and therefore a recession.

Answer 3

we are following a pattern like 1998. We top out in 2010. look like Japan by 2015 and start some recovery by 2020. 2010 should be like 1929.