NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee - March 1991
NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee
Determines that Recession Ended in March 1991
CAMBRIDGE, December 22, 1992 -- The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National
Bureau of Economic Research met by conference call yesterday. The committee maintains
a chronology of the U.S. business cycle that is widely used in the analysis of business
conditions. In its meeting, the committee determined that the U.S. economy reached a
trough of activity in March 1991.
Previously, the committee had determined that the economy reached a peak of activity in July 1990.
The eight-month period between July 1990 and March 1991 is a recession in the NBER's
chronology. The committee thus determined that the recession ended in March 1991 and
that an expansion began at that time.
The committee had waited to make the determination of the trough date until it was
confident that any future downturn in the economy would be considered a new recession
and not a continuation of the recession that began in July 1990. The committee
noted that the broadest measure of economic activity -- gross domestic product in constant
dollars -- had finally surpassed its previous peak by the third quarter of 1992. Only by
December did the overall pattern of economic activity appear to be strong enough to warrant
the determination of the trough date.
The behavior of the economy in 1991 made the determination of the trough particularly
challenging. Two important monthly indicators related to the production and sales of goods
-- industrial production and manufacturing-trade sales in constant dollars -- had unambiguous
troughs in early 1991 (in March and January, respectively). Two other monthly indicators had
declined to close to their minimum values by early 1991, but continued to decline slightly
for the rest of 1991. Real personal income reached its trough in November 1991, at 0.07
percent below its level in April. Employees on non-agricultural payrolls reached its
trough in January 1992, also at 0.07 percent below its level in April. Total hours of all
non-agricultural employees reached its trough in April. The choice of March 1991 as the
trough date was based primarily on the fact that various averages of the monthly
indicators reached clear troughs in that month.
The NBER also maintains a quarterly chronology of the U.S. business cycle. It determined
that the most recent trough occurred in the first quarter of 1991.
Committee members are: William Branson, Princeton University; Martin Feldstein, NBER President;
Benjamin Friedman, Harvard University; Robert Gordon, Northwestern University; Robert Hall,
chairman, of Stanford University; Geoffrey Moore, Columbia University; and Victor
Zarnowitz, University of Chicago.
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