TY  - JOUR
AU  - Zarnowitz,Victor
TI  - The Regularity of Business Cycles
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2381
PY  - 1987
Y2  - September 1987
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2381
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2381.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Victor Zarnowitz
Conference Board
845 3rd Avenue
New York, NY 10022-6679
Tel: 212/339-0432
Fax: 212/836-9757
E-Mail: no email available
M1  - published as Victor Zarnowitz. "The Regularity of Business Cycles," in "Business Cycles: Theory, History, Indicators, and Forecasting" University of Chicago Press (1992)

AB  - Do business cycles have predictable periodicities or are they random walks without past regularities or predictive value? Arguments in support of either position are found in the literature, with no apparent convergence to an agreement. This paper first examines the implications of the NBER chronologies and other findings for the question of the regularity of business cycles. It discusses hypotheses and presents evidence concerning the incidence and coexistence of cycles with different periods. An extension of the analysis covers growth cycles in the United States and other major countries. The paper then considers different models -- linear, nonlinear, endogenous, and exogenous -- for what they have to say about the problem. The regularity of investment cycles and the possible asymmetries in cyclical behavior receive particular attention, and some related data and tests are provided. Our results suggest that business cycles defy simple characterizations: they show a strong tendency to recur and at times even near periodicity, along with great diversity and evolution of phase durations. The age of a phase is not of much help in predicting the date of its end; the regularities are mainly in the dynamics of the developing business conditions.
ER  -