What is a recession?: a reprise

This paper draws its title from a paper written over 35 years ago by GeoffreyH. Moore (1967). Why the need for a reprise? First, there would appear currentlyto be somewhat diverging views as to what properly constitutes a recession. Second,largely as a result of this, in many countries other than the US, there does not exista single, widely accepted business cycle chronology for the country in question.This paper will argue that, in addition to output, there are other important aspectsto aggregate economic activity that need to be taken into account in determiningthe business cycle, viz., income, sales and employment. As such, our perspectivewould seem to be at odds with the apparent position taken by some other recentcommentators on this issue who argue that GDP is all that is needed to representa country's business cycle. We will also argue against using the currently popular'two negative quarterly growth rate' rule in dating the onset of a recession.