The UK Business Cycle – Dating and Implications

The Institute is at the centre of the National debate on the measurement and understanding of business cycle fluctuations.  We start this process at the fundamental level.  The UK has some excellent long run data on economic progress and some of the basic facts of business cycle peak and troughs have been explored in earlier work at the Institute.  Chadha and Nolan (2002) explored the long run of the UK business cycle and presented some stylised facts on duration and the cyclical behaviour of macroeconomic aggregates.  We present a Table from Appendix A from their working paper with some basic business cycle dates.

Given the experience since 2008, we also need to understand whether recessions are important phenomena in their own right or simply draws from the tail of a well understood distribution.  We will start with a short paper, written by Institute Staff, that will outline the measurement issues related to the Business Cycle.  We will then apply this methodology to UK data to establish the relevant dates.  Given its long history of real-side analysis, the Institute is the natural place to set out the basic facts on the business cycle and ensure their wider dissemination.  The composition of our Business Cycle Dating Committee will be announced shortly.  For any further information on this initiative or to participate please write to:

Prof J. S. Chadha
Director
National Institute of Economic and Social Research
2 Dean Trench Street
Smith Square
London
SW1P 3HE
j.chadha [at] niesr.ac.uk

References
Chadha, J. S. and C. Nolan, (2002). “A Long View of the UK Business Cycle”, National Institute Economic Review, No 182, pp72-89.
Chadha, J. S. and N. Janssen and C. Nolan, (2000), “An Examination of UK Business Cycle Fluctuations, 1871-1997”, Cambridge Working Papers in Economics, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, Supplementary Paper.