TY  - JOUR
AU  - Temin,Peter
TI  - The Causes of American Business Cycles:  An Essay in Economic           Historiography
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6692
PY  - 1998
Y2  - August 1998
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6692
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6692.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Peter Temin
Department of Economics
MIT, Room E52-271A
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA  02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-3126
Fax: 617/253-1330
E-Mail: ptemin@mit.edu
AB  - This paper surveys the causes of American business cycles for the century 1890 - 1990.  Causes are taken to be exogenous shocks to a model with largely endogenous policy makers.  Causes are classified as either real or monetary and domestic or foreign. All four causes were found to have led to cycles in the past century.  This diversity was found in all time periods and for all size cycles.  There were more domestic than foreign causes, confirming the relative independence of the American economy from external conditions.  There were more real than monetary causes, conflicting with the popular view that monetary shocks are the source of most cycles.
ER  -