On quantitative and graphical measures of the severity of New Zealand’s recessions and strength of its expansions

Viv B. Hall (), John McDermott () and Peter Thomson ()
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Viv B. Hall: School of Economics and Finance, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, https://people.wgtn.ac.nz/viv.hall
John McDermott: Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, https://www.motu.nz/about-us/people/john-mcdermott
Peter Thomson: Statistics Research Associates Ltd, Wellington, New Zealand, https://www.statsresearch.co.nz/staff.html

No 26_02, Motu Working Papers from Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

Abstract: We develop three measures for the shape of business cycle phases, reflecting excess gains and losses relative to constant quarterly growth across the phase. These measures can be seen as representing better or worse economic outcomes during recession and expansion phases relative to constant growth rate paths and, as a consequence, provide summary evaluation measures for such economic outcomes. Using a phase’s constant quarterly growth rate as the benchmark, our methodology builds on Harding and Pagan (2016) by developing quantitative measures that have useful economic interpretations and which are amenable to informative graphical display and analysis. Empirical outcomes are provided for New Zealand’s recession and expansion phases.

Keywords: Business cycle phase shape measurement; excess gain and loss measures; business cycle turning points; business cycle recessions and contractions; New Zealand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C1 C22 C82 E32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2026-02-18
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