Business Cycle Theories : A General Comparison

go through cycles of expansion, recession and recovery. Monetary and fiscal policies can affect the timing and length of these cycles. In the expansion phase, the economy grows, businesses add jobs and consumer spending increases. At some point, known as

Another important factor to consider when starting a business is the “business cycle.” The business cycle is the fluctuations in economic activity that an economy will experience over a period of time. We have experience may business cycles in the United States. We refer to them as expansions and recessions. In an expansions, the economic outlook is good and growth happens, without inflation. Recessions are when the economy is shrinking and the determination factors for a recession include unemployment, low industry production, decrease sales and lower incomes. Since 1854, The United States has experienced 33

There quite a few similarities and differences between each of the two theories that I’ve introduced above. The main similarities include:

A political business cycle is the concept that politicians are more interested in reelection than in stabilizing the economy. Before the election, they enact tax cuts and spending increases to please voters even though this may fuel inflation. After the election, they apply the brakes to restrain inflation; the economy will slow and unemployment will rise. In this view the political process creates economic instability.

Hint: Business cycles fluctuate over time around the linear trend of gross domestic product (GDP).

Services decrease. Production slows down causing the unemployment rate to go up. Bigger expensive items are not purchased and this will have a ripple effect on smaller businesses eventually. Depression- Is exactly that everyone is depressed by the turn in the economy. The recession eventually gets worse and leads into depression. The GDP falls rapidly with weak sales and servic. Businesses start failing, people are without work. Recovery- this phase is when things start improving, and the GDP starts rising. An increase in demand for products begins the start of increasing employment and wages

The economy has taken a leap downward in the past year, as it did back in 2009; this however does not translate to a stagnant or failing economy as it is theorized that these downturns are cyclical in nature and are a result of poor practices that are eventually weeded out with the economy stabilizing and growing again.

The Business Cycle is “…the "ups and downs" in economic activity, defined in terms of periods of expansion or recession” (Dr. Econ). Expansion is the period in which employment, production, sales and income increase. Likewise, the contrasting contraction is when the actions above decrease. In order to keep track of the fluctuations of the US’s business cycles troughs and peaks, the National Bureau of Economic Research was created. The NBER is comprised of a group of economic researchers currently led by president James Poterba. The members are usually specialized in the field of business-cycle research, and are chosen by the president. The NBER was founded in 1920 as a private non-profit “…non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, and business professionals.” (http://www.nber.org/info.html). The NBER dating committee was formed in 1978, and plays an important role in the US as an examiner of broad measures of economic activity, and the most reliable source of the beginning and end of recessions in the U.S. This is accomplished by gathering as much data on a given period of economic activity.

A simple analogy to help support this would be; the auto industry is not producing the amount of vehicles that they have in the past. This, in turn means that they don’t need the volume of tires that they have. Now, this causes problems for the tire maker. If the tire maker, doesn’t have a demand then they don’t need as many employees and causes the tire maker to make drastic cuts to its personnel. And the ripple effect continues on down the line causing further layoffs; not only for the tire maker, but also for their suppliers.

All of these factors have an enormous impact on my selected business (Barclays) as the economy goes from growth and decline. As well as many others, Barclays is majorly affected as it is in the financial industry. These different factors appear throughout what is called the ‘Business Cycle’. The cycle shows the fluctuation of the activity within the economy over a period of time and consists of 4 main stages; as well as many others,

Recession cycles are thought to be a normal part of living in a world of inexact balances between supply and demand. What turns a usually mild and short recession or "ordinary" business cycle into an actual depression is a subject of debate and concern. Scholars have not agreed on the exact causes and their relative importance. The search for causes is closely connected to the question of how to avoid a future depression, and so the political and policy viewpoints of scholars are mixed into the analysis of historic events eight decades ago. The even larger question is whether it was largely a failure on the part of free markets or largely a failure on the part of government efforts to regulate interest rates, curtail widespread bank failures, and control the money supply. Those who believe in a large role for the state in the economy believe it was mostly a failure of the free markets and those who believe in free markets believe it was mostly a failure of government that compounded the problem.

Firstly, it was necessary to give the class a concise definition of these broad theories, and follow these definitions with general background explanation on the idea behind the respective theologies. The definitions that we

Theories about how the economy works and what will happen in the economy where there is monetary policy or fiscal policy intervention are appropriate in assisting policy-makers understand the possible implications of decisions they make or are under consideration. However, they are rarely complete models and often outcomes cannot be predicted. Reintroduction of a theory suggests that new evidence in support of the theory has been reported.

Business, consumers and employees are more weak to downturns in the economies of trading partners. For example, recession in the USA leads to decrease in demand for UK’s exports, leading to falling in export incomes, lower GDP and incomes, decrease in domestic demand and rising in unemployment.

Timing of the business cycle is not predictable, but its phases seem to be. Many economists site four phases—prosperity, liquidation, depression, and recovery. During a period of prosperity, a rise in production leads to increases in employment, wages, and profits. Obstacles then begin to obstruct further expansion. Production costs can increase, helping create a rise in prices, and