Charles Brown wrote: Has GDP gone down for two consecutive quarters ? Doug: > That's not the official definition.
of course, the "official" definition -- that of the NBER's business-cycle dating committee -- isn't really official, since the NBER is not a part of the government (which typically provides official statistics and the like). The two-consecutive-quarter definition is the media's generally-accepted definition. It might equally be deemed to be "official." Both the NBER and the media are part of the political-economic establishment, so they both might be seen as presenting the official definition. Of course, that depends on what one means by "official." In the end, it doesn't matter what you call it. The US has been in an employment recession (falling employment relative to the trend) for quite awhile. The standard recession definition mostly refers to the product market (though the NBER looks at employment as part of the picture). Looking at only the product market (GDP, industrial production, etc.) gives a more bourgeois definition of recession, while the "employment recession" idea defines it more from the perspective of the working class (a working class stuck inside of capitalism, of course). -- Jim Devine / "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
