The business cycle is the short-run alternation between economic downturns and economic upturns (Investopedia n.d.). A recession is an economic downturn and happens in every country and some recessions are worse than others and the output of GDP and employment are falling farther and faster. The great depression lasted from 1929-1933 and was a deep prolonged downturn in the business cycle before a recovery/expansion of the business cycle occurred and GDP and employment started to rise (Krugman & Wells. 2012). The next recession lasted from 1981-1982 and was comparatively smaller than the first (Krugman & Wells. 2012). More recently in 2001 a slump in the economy was noted and was followed by the great rescission of 2007-2009 (Krugman & Wells. 2012). Recession is defined as a “period of at least two consecutive quarters (a quarter is three months) during which the total output of the economy shrinks” (Krugman & Wells. 2012). In the United States the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is assigning the task of determining when a recession begins and the NBER looks at a variety of economic indicators such as employment and production (Krugman & Wells. 2012). Every business cycle recession has a negative impact on the economy the recession’s deferrer on the strength of the impact on the country. Consider the two charts for Figure 21-5 of the more recent recessions of 2001 and 2007. The Recession of 2001 did not last as long as the recession of 2007 and did not have as much of an economical hardship on the business cycle and as shown 2007 dipped greatly in industrial production. In the second chart it demonstrates a recession at the point the economy turns from expansion to recession or the business-cycle peak. Then in the char... ... middle of paper ... ....). New York, NY: Worth. Pettinger, T. (n.d.). Circular Flow of Income. Economics Help. Retrieved from http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/glossary/circular-flow-income/ PIMENTEL, David (n.d.). PIMENTEL, David. US professor on population growth, Earth's carrying capacity, biofuel, big money & politician ignorance - BIOFUEL GENOCIDE. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/biofuelgenocide/pimentel-david The U.S. Population Situation. (n.d.). World Population Balance. Retrieved from http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/us_population United States. (n.d.). Data. Retrieved from http://data.worldbank.org/country/united-states U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (n.d.). Employment status of the civilian non-institutional population 25 years and over by educational attainment, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat07.htm
By definition, an economic depression is a “sustained, long-term downturn in economic activity in one or more economies.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_depression) The latter, is far worse then a recession. A recession is merely an economic slowdown, which was experienced by most Atlantic Provinces in the late 19th century.
Business cycles are defined in the Webster dictionary as “economy-wide fluctuations in production, trade and economic activity in general over several months or years in an economy organized on free-enterprise principles”. These cycles have three main characteristics; expansion, recession, and depression. Expansion is known as increases in the demand for capital and consumer goods. Recession is known as the time when an economy slows down, and the level of sales and production start declining. Depression is know as the Demand for products and services decrease, forcing companies to shut down some production facilities, a period of recession ushers in depression.
A recession is where there is temporary economic deterioration which lasts longer than a few months, sometimes years. This can be seen by the employment rate decreasing and the reduction of trade and industry work. This is determined by the Gross Domestic Product (GPD) which is a government statistic which shows the total country’s economy movement. This is measured every 3 months (quarterly) and it is said that if after two consecutive quarters the GPD is down then the country is seen to be in recession. (Kollewe, 2009). The most recent recession in the UK kick-started in 2008, which was seen to be one of the worst recessions the UK has seen since the Great Depression. In July 2008 was when it became increasingly obvious that we was about to enter a recession; the unemployment rate kept rising, the housing industry started to cut thousands of jobs and the whole-sale industry was declining in production. (Allen, 2010)
It has been 5 years now, but the world economy is still hovering over with ill effects of global economic recession. Different economist define recession in a different way but one common definition which can be derived is that recession is long lasting and prime reason for slowdown to economic activity(GDP). In terms of measuring the effects of recession, the broadest indicator of economic activity is real gross domestic product(GDP). Our following section will discuss how the economic activities in US has actually decreased since the beginning of market turmoil.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics characterizes a recession as a general slowdown in economic activity, a downturn in the business cycle, and a reduction in the amount of goods and services produced and sold. But what usually causes this slowdown to begin with? Each recession has its own specific causes, but all of them are usually preceded by a period of irrational exuberance which is part of the expansion phase of the business cycle. The most recent one, which officially lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, produced the greatest US labor-market meltdown since the Great Depression. This Great Recession began with the bursting of an 8 trillion dollar housing bubble. Irrational exuberance in the housing market led many people to buy houses they couldn’t afford because the thought was that housing prices could only go up. The bubble burst in 2006 as housing prices started to decline, threw many homeowners off guard, who had taken loans with little money down. When the realization set in that they would lose money by selling the house for less than their mortgage, they foreclosed. This triggered an enormous foreclosure rate which caused many banks and hedge funds to panic after realizing the looming huge losses due to the buying of mortgage-backed securities on the secondary market. By August 2007, banks were afraid to lend to one another because they did not want these toxic loans as collateral. This led to the $700 billion bailout, and bankruptcies or government nationalization of Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, IndyMac Bank, and Washington Mutual. Consumer spending experienced sharp cutbacks due to the resulting loss of wealth. The combination of this along with the financial market chaos elicited by the bursting of th...
According to the article on “Economic Recession” from Issues and Controversies, a panel of economists determined that the U.S. was in a recession from December 2007 to June 2009, making it the longest ...
Knoop, A, T, 2011, Recessions and depressions: understanding business cycles, ABC-CLIO, United States of America
What caused the Great Recession that lasted from December 2007 to June 2009 in the United States? The United States a country with abundance of resources from jobs, education, money and power went from one day of economic balance to the next suffering major dimensions crisis. According to the Economic Policy Institute, it all began in 2007 from the credit crisis, which resulted in an 8 trillion dollar housing bubble (n.d.). This said by Economist analysts to attributed to the collapse in the United States. Even today, strong debates continue over major issues caused by the Great Recession in part over the accommodative federal monetary and fiscal policy (Economic Policy Institute, 2013). The Great Recession of 2007 – 2009 enlarges the longest financial crisis since the Great Depression of 1929 – 1932 that damaged the economy.
In economics, a recession occurs when there is a slowdown in the spending of goods and services in the market. A recession causes a drop in employment, GDP growth, investment, as well as societal well-being. All recessions are caused by a specific cause, but the Great Recession of 2007-2009 was caused by a crash in the housing market. This crash was triggered by a steep decline in housing prices. All of a sudden, people bought houses because there was an excessive amount of money in the economy and they thought the price of houses would only increase. (Amadeo, 2012). There was a financial frenzy as the growing desire for homes expanded. People held a lot of faith in the economy and began spending irrationally on houses that they couldn’t afford. This led to overvalued estate and unsustainable mortgage debt. (McConnell, Brue, Flynn, 2012).
Global recessions of 1975, 1982, 1991 and 2009 have questioned economists of the specific era to provide the causes of these recessions along with steps to avoid them. IMF considers global recession as “A decline in annual per capita real World GDP (purchasing power parity weighted), backed up by a decline or worsening for one or more of the seven other global macroeconomic indicators: Industrial production, trade, capital flows, oil consumption, unemployment rate, per capita investment, and per capita consumption” (World Economic and Financial Surveys). A recession therefore affects all the countries dependent on an economy undergoing recession. Since decades economists are trying to draft possible measures that an economy can take to avoid recession or to get out of a recession. Constant debates, on which approach an economy should take to get out of recession, have never reached to any conclusion. Mainly there are three schools of thought in economics that emerged during and after recession i.e. classical, monetarist and Keynesian. No school of thought has yet provided a perfect solution as the approaches by these three schools have many pros and cons. However, many economists believe that Keynesian is a more suitable approach for getting an economy out of recession. Although Keynesian approach have policy lags and can cause high inflation, however, Keynesian tools’ expansionary fiscal policy, expansionary monetary policy and revaluation of currency are very effective in increasing GDP ultimately pulling an economy out of recession.
A recession is characterised by at least two quarters of negative GDP growth. There is a decline in output, employment, and as a result decreased income. The decreased income causes consumers to spend less, which causes GDP to decrease even more. Eventually, the country will reach a trough, or depression. This is when the country bottoms out; everything is at the lowest levels.
The phrase “History repeats itself” is a commonly used paradigm when it comes to events that happen in a repetitive notion. The recession that has recently been witnessed by the millions is a great example of history repeating itself. How did it happen, did we know it was going to happen, and was there anything that could have been done to prevent it? There are a multitude of questions that could be asked, with the most important of them all, will it happen again? In just the past two hundred years, the United States has seen “Black Friday” in 1869, “The Great Depression” in 1929, and the most current recession of 2009. Recessions, depressions, inflation, economic boom, these are all terms used to describe the financial events that have taken place in the United States as far back as 1819. Known as the first major recession, an economic boom took place just after the war of 1812. According to an article in American History Magazine, most recessions that the US has seen last an average of 10 months, and reoccur on average every 4.6 years. It has become a cycle, a business cycle, one that we will most likely see several times over again during our time. These events among others that deal with financial crisis, weather it be a loss of stock or inflation of goods, have had a tremendous effect on our country, and is believed that it will happen again.
ii. The economy is said to be experiencing recession when demands for certain products and services shrink. When demand falls, the prices will also decrease. When this happens, companies will not be able to make a lot of profit. To survive in the industry, they needed to cut some of their staffs. During this period of time, the rate of unemployment is rising. When they do not have enough workers, the productions are not as numerous as during the ‘booming’ state. Because of the...
Even though schools are not a profit making entity, it is still important to note that at the end of the day they are not owing more than they are earning. The layoff will allow schools to operate in a less stressful environment and does not permit this deficiency to spill over on the students. It is heart-rending when such an action has to be taken but overtime it is the best thing for the institution. In some cases, some schools may rehire a few teachers which it rarely does happen and if it does a significant amount does not get rehire.
Many countries in the world have been suffering a recession in their economies and UK has not been an exception. A recession is a macroeconomic term describing one of the two business cycles that economies go through. The business cycles is characterized by either a boom where there are more business activities carried with a rapid economic growth and points of recession where there is retardation min economic growth. Various aspects and factors contribute to economic growth, which is measured through GDP. This factor may include savings, investments government spending plus other factors within either an increase or a decrease. Reduction in spending may lead to a recession while a n increase in spending may lead to expansion that is a boom in the economy.