Measurement of Business Cycles

We describe different ways of measuring the business cycle. Insti- tutions such as the NBER, OECD and IMF do this through locating the turning points in series taken to represent the aggregate level of economic activity. The turning points are determined according to rules that either come from a parametric model or are non-parametric. Once located information can be extracted on cycle characteristics. We also distinguish cases where a single or multiple series are used to represent the level of activity.