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Article: A regional perspective on the U.S. business cycle
- Article from:
- Chicago Fed Letter
- Article date:
- November 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago Nov 2002. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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It is not difficult to come up with a definition of the business cycle that most of us would understand. A thornier issue is how to come up with an empirical measure of the business cycle. This article tackles the question and, in the process, offers a new measure of the U.S. business cycle, derived from regional data. A highlight of this approach is that it facilitates the identification of region-specific influences, such as technology booms or commodity price spikes.
On a recent flight to Australia, the traveler in the neighboring seat (upon learning that I was an economist) promptly asked me to explain what the business cycle was. I pointed out that I was an academic economist and that ...