Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-7zcd7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-11T22:51:28.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Improved Annual Chronology of U.S. Business Cycles since the 1790s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2006

JOSEPH H. DAVIS
JOSEPH H. DAVIS
Affiliation:
Investment Analyst, Investment Counseling and Research, The Vanguard Group, Valley Forge, PA 19482-2600. E-mail: joseph_davis@vanguard.com.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The NBER's pre–World War I dating of business cycles implies that the U.S. economy spent nearly every other year in recession. This article extends earlier efforts at redating for the 1796–1914 period using a single metric: Davis's (2004) annual industrial production index. The new chronology alters more than 40 percent of the peak and troughs and removes the most questionable cycles. An important implication of this is the lack of discernible differences in the frequency and duration of industrial cycles among the pre–Civil War, Civil War to World War I, and post–World War II periods.

Information

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 66 , Issue 1 , March 2006 , pp. 103 - 121
Copyright
© 2006 The Economic History Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ayres Leonard P. 1940 Turning Points in Business Cycles. New York: Macmillan.
Balke Nathan. S., and Robert J. Gordon. 1989 “The Estimation of Prewar Gross National Product: Methodology and New Evidence.” Journal of Political Economy 97, no. 1 38– 92.Google Scholar
Burns Arthur. F., and Wesley C. Mitchell. 1946 Measuring Business Cycles. New York: NBER.
Davis Joseph. H. 2002 “A Quantity-Based Annual Index of U.S. Industrial Production, 1790–1915: An Empirical Appraisal of Historical Business-Cycle Fluctuations.” Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University.
Davis Joseph. H. 2004 “A Quantity-Based Annual Index of U.S. Industrial Production, 1790–1915.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 119, no. 4 1177– 215.Google Scholar
Diebold Francis. X., and Glenn D. Rudebusch. 1992 “Have Postwar Economic Fluctuations Been Stabilized?” American Economic Review 82, no. 4 993– 1005.Google Scholar
Fels Rendigs. 1959 American Business Cycles, 1865–1897. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Glasner David. ed. 1997 Business Cycles and Depressions: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc..
Hanes Christopher. 1998 “Consistent Wholesale Price Series for the United States, 1860–1990.” In Business Cycles since 1820: New International Perspectives from Historical Evidence, edited by Trevor J. O. Dick, 176– 209. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
Hull George. H. 1911 Industrial Depressions. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company.
Irwin Douglas. A., and Joseph H. Davis. 2003 “Trade Disruptions and America's Early Industrialization.” NBER Working Paper, no. 9944,
Kindleberger Charles. P. 2000 Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises. 4th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Lightner Otto. C. 1922 The History of Business Depressions. New York: Northeastern Press.
Miron Jeffrey. A., and Christina D. Romer. 1990 “A New Monthly Index of Industrial Production, 1884–1940.” This JOURNAL, 50, no. 2 321– 37.Google Scholar
Mishkin Frederic. S. 1991 “Asymmetric Information and Financial Crises: A Historical Perspective.” In Financial Markets and Financial Crises, edited by R. Glenn Hubbard, 69– 108. NBER Project Report. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mitchell Wesley. C. “Business Cycles as Revealed by Business Annals.” Introduction to Business Annals, Willard Long Thorp, 15–100. NBER General Series, no. 8. New York: NBER, 1926.
Mitchell Wesley. C. Business Cycles: The Problem and its Setting. NBER Studies in Business Cycles, vol. 1. New York: NBER, 1927.
Moore Geoffrey. H., and Victor Zarnowitz. 1986 “The Development and Role of the National Bureau of Economic Research's Business Cycle Chronologies.” In The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, edited by Robert J. Gordon, 735– 79. NBER Studies in Business Cycles, vol. 25. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rhode Paul. W. 2002 “Gallman's Annual Output Series for the United States, 1834–1909.” NBER Working Paper, no. 8860,
Romer Christina. D. 1994 Remeasuring Business Cycles. This JOURNAL 54, no. 3 573– 609.Google Scholar
Smith Walter, and Arthur Cole. Fluctuations in American Business, 1790–1860. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935.
Temin Peter. 1969 The Jacksonian Economy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc..
Temin Peter. 1998 “The Causes of American Business Cycles: An essay in Economic Historiography.” In Beyond Shocks: What Causes Business Cycles?, edited by Jeffrey C. Fuhrer and Scott Schuh, 37– 59. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston Conference Series, no. 42. Boston: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Thorp Willard. Long. 1926 Business Annals. NBER General Series, no. 8. New York: NBER.
U.S. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. 1986 Industrial Production: 1986 Edition, with a Description of the Methodology. Washington, DC: Board of Governors.
Watson Mark. W. 1994 “Business-Cycle Durations and Postwar Stabilization of the U.S. Economy.” American Economic Review 84, no. 1 24– 46.Google Scholar
Zarnowitz Victor. 1992 Business Cycles: Theory, History, Indicators, and Forecasting. NBER Studies in Business Cycles, vol. 27. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.