This paper represents a very early progress report on a new study of business cycle indicators for the United States. Our host organization, CIRET, is concerned with research on surveys of economic tendencies that cover broad areas of business, investment, and consumer behavior. These inquiries...

It is a remarkable fact about the historical US business cycle that, after unemployment reached its peak in a recession, and a recovery began, the annual reduction in the unemployment rate was stable at around 0.55 percentage points per year. The economy seems to have had an irresistible force...

New data compel a new view of events in the labor market during a recession. Unemployment rises almost entirely because jobs become harder to find. Recessions involve little increase in the flow of workers out of jobs. Another important finding from new data is that a large fraction of workers...

A reexamination of data indicates a great diversity of cyclical experience in both the distant and recent history, but also a distinct moderation of the business cycle in the postwar era (shorter and milder contractions). This is consistent with long and widely held views, but contrary to some...