The Seasonal Cycle and the Business Cycle

Robert Barsky and Jeffrey Miron ()

Journal of Political Economy, 1989, vol. 97, issue 3, 503-34

Abstract: Almost all recent research on macroeconomic fluctuations has worked with seasonally-adjusted or annual data. This paper takes a different approach by examining the seasonal movements themselves. The authors' results show that seasonal fluctuations are an important source of variation in all macroeconomic quantity variables, but are small or absent in price variables. The paper also demonstrates that at seasonal frequencies, as well as at business cycle frequencies, output movements across broadly-defined sectors move together, the timing of production and the timing of sales coincide closely, labor productivity is procyclical, nominal money and real output are highly correlated, and prices vary less than quantities. Copyright 1989 by University of Chicago Press.

Date: 1989
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Working Paper: The Seasonal Cycle and the Business Cycle (1988)
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