On some issues concerning definition of an economic recession

Jiri Mazurek

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: In the article it is shown that current definitions of economic recessions are unsatisfactory. NBER definition of an economic recession is only qualitative, so it does not enable identifying recession unequivocally. Another often used ‘technical definition’ of a recession takes into account only quarter-to-quarter changes in real GDP without considering changes in population, so in some cases economy can be in recession while real GDP per capita is actually increasing, and vice versa. Hence, the aim of the article is to propose new quantitative definition of an economic recession based both on economic and population growth or decline respectively. The use of the proposed definition is illustrated on examples of recent economic development in selected countries of the European Union.

Keywords: definition of a recession; European Union; population growth; recession (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 E32 O52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-12-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
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