ECONOMIC FLUCTUATION

The Economic Fluctuation and United States

The Economic Fluctuation and United States

The Economic Fluctuations and Growth (EF&G) Program goes back to the beginning of Martin Feldstein's presidency of the NBER, although originally it was simply called the Economic Fluctuations Program. It has been my honor to serve as its director from its founding, 32 years ago. To the public, the Program's most conspicuous activity has been to maintain the NBER's chronology of the U.S. business cycle, generally accepted as the standard for identifying the beginning and ending of each recession (Samuelson, 1939).

Both measures are stated as indexes that ...