34)Let’s start by defining a recession. As I mentioned, there are several commonly used definitions of a recession. For example, journalists often describe a recession as two consecutive quarters of declines in quarterly real (inflation adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP).
The definition used by economists differs. Economists use monthly business cycle peaks and troughs designated by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) to define periods of expansion and contractions. The NBER website lists the peaks and troughs in economic activity starting with the December 1854 trough. The website also defines a recession as:
A recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. A recession begins just after the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends as the economy reaches its trough. Between trough and peak, the economy is in an expansion. Expansion is the normal state of the economy; most recessions are brief and they have been rare in recent decades.
Depression
While there is also no standard definition for depression, it is commonly defined as a more severe version of a recession. In his popular intermediate macroeconomics textbook, Gregory Mankiw (Mankiw 2003) distinguishes between the two:
There are repeated periods during which real GDP falls, the most dramatic instance being the early 1930s. Such periods are called recessions if they are mild and depressions if they are more severe.
As Mankiw pointed out, perhaps the most famous economic downturn in the U.S.’s (as well as the world’s) economic history was the Great Depression, often described as starting in 1929 and lasting at least through the 1930s and into the early 1940s, a period that actually includes two severe economic downturns. Using the NBER business cycle dates, the first downturn of the Great Depression started in August 1929 and lasted 43 months, until March 1933, far longer than any other twentieth century contraction. The economy then expanded for 21 months, from March 1933 until May 1937, before suffering another downturn: from May 1937 until June 1938, a period of 13 months, the economy again contracted.
35)The factor that would be the least important variable that affects the business cycle is outsourcing. The variables that do affect the business cycle are inflation, employment, and productivity. Inflation indicates how high the prices of goods and services have risen
36) d
