The National Bureau of Economic Research, the official scorekeeper for the business cycle in the United States, says that the recession ended about 15 months ago in June 2009:
CAMBRIDGE September 20, 2010 – The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research met yesterday by conference call. At its meeting, the committee determined that a trough in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in June 2009. The trough marks the end of the recession that began in December 2007 and the beginning of an expansion. The recession lasted 18 months, which makes it the longest of any recession since World War II. Previously the longest postwar recessions were those of 1973-75 and 1981-82, both of which lasted 16 months.
In determining that a trough occurred in June 2009, the committee did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity. Rather, the committee determined only that the recession ended and a recovery began in that month. A recession is a period of falling economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. The trough marks the end of the declining phase and the start of the rising phase of the business cycle. Economic activity is typically below normal in the early stages of an expansion, and it sometimes remains so well into the expansion.
Based on the sluggish economic activity since the end of the recession, I think that we can reasonably conclude that a V-shaped recovery is now out of the question and the best we can hope for is a U-shaped recovery or, IMO more likely, an L. Their timing would also appear to rule out a double-dip.
No, we are not still in a recession as some people have asserted. No,its not a depression. The wheel has turned, the trough is more than a year behind us. This is not a robust recovery, but the economy is now expanding, not contracting.
The decision by the NBER means that any future downturn in the economy would be considered a new recession and not a continuation of the recession that began in 2007.
Yeah, any mea culpa’s from the likes of DeLong and Krugman? Nope didn’t think so.
Oh and man could Krugman have been any more of a twat?