Recession Dating

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RECESSION DATING….Me, back in February:

When NBER eventually gets around to dating the 2008 recession, when will they decide it started? My money is on December 2007. And when will they date the end? I’d guess March 2009.

NBER, today:

The nation’s economy peaked, and the recession began, in December 2007, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced today.

….The committee concluded that the start of the recession was December 2007 — due in large part, it said in a statement, to the decline in jobs that began that month. But it noted that many other data points confirm the diagnosis.

“The committee determined that the decline in economic activity in 2008 met the standard for a recession,” the group said in its statement. “Evidence other than the ambiguous movements of the quarterly product-side measure of domestic production confirmed that conclusion. Many of these indicators, including monthly data on the largest component of GDP, consumption, have declined sharply in recent months.”

Advantage: blogosphere!