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A Half-Pint Recovery, One Year On

- "While the official business cycle dating authorities at the National Bureau of Economic Research have yet to render a judgment on the matter, the Great Recession ended approximately one year ago. That’s when real GDP and other measures of general economic activity stopped shrinking. How does Year 1 of the recovery measure up against prior cyclical experience?"
- "In the following charts, we compare the current recovery against recoveries following the two recent, mild, recessions (1990-1991, and 2001) and recoveries following two earlier severe recessions (1973-75 and 1981-82). This cyclically adjusts for the stylized fact that applies to most of business cycle history - “the harder the fall, the faster the rebound.”"
- "If such history were any guide, the current recovery should be as powerful, or
more so, than the recoveries following the severe recessions. But it’s only half as powerful measured in units of GDP – an unsatisfying result considering the sheer volume of stimulus thrown at the problem. Still, today’s recovery is beating the recoveries following the mild recessions - hence, we are clearly on a better path than the more pessimistic “U-shaped” or “L-shaped” forecasts."
- "Highlights include satisfying outperformance by business equipment and software purchases as well as exports; the rest of the economy’s sectors are disappointing by historical standards to greater or lesser degrees."

CreditSuisse US Economic Digest 20100730

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