Former NBER President Says U.S. Recession "Isn't Over"

[cieldumort]

Martin Feldstein, former President of the official arbiters of recession start and end dates in the United States, today told Bloomberg that the US is still in recession.

If defining recessions more narrowly as two back-to-back quarterly declines of GDP, Feldstein doesn't have much data on his side. And even using the more encompassing method

Comments

[capthek]

This actually annoys me because the news seems to like to go from saying there is no recession to saying there is when there is a clear definition of what a recession is. If you want to say that the economy sucks or that we are in a 'growth recession' or that unemployment is high, that is all fine. But lets stop redefining the term in these random ways.

[cieldumort]

This is not "the news" saying we are in a recession. This is the former PRESIDENT of the NBER's BUSINESS CYCLE DATING COMMITTEE saying we are still in recession.

Be annoyed all you want, but what would really be annoying, would be if in fact these underlying weaknesses in the technical recovery finally rupture.

The housing recovery is very close to giving way to a renewed meltdown, as just one example. And that one in particular could singlehandedly throw the economy back into the ditch. Dr. Feldstein would be somewhat vindicated in considering that a continuation of the same recession that began in 2007.

[interactiveleaf]

there is a clear definition of what a recession is.

There is no such thing.

[cieldumort]

There are, however, some generally accepted outlines of what defines a recession, and for the most part a huge plurality of economists would not define the current conditions in the US as a recession, but rather, a recovery (however weak and potentially unsustainable it may be).

The NBER at least spells out their widely-accepted formula, so that the rest of us can follow along, if we so choose.

By their four-part definition, my interpretation is that the recession probably ended sometime between June and November - most likely about July - but that if there were to be another leg down at the beginning of 2010, it would probably be considered a continuation of the 2007 recession, rather than a new recession (compared to what happened in the early 80s, when two nearby downturns were considered two separate recessions, and also compared to what happened in the early 00s, when two nearby downturns were considered one official recession, and one "soft patch")...

[badnewswade]

I think we're going to see a lot of this -"technical" growth and so forth, but actually it's just money being shuffled around differently - and in the wrong direction, at that.

[cieldumort]

I'll take a technical recovery over a technical recession, but I know what you mean.