Publisher's Synopsis
For much of the postwar period variations in the rate of output growth and other economic indicators in Britain have followed an irregular but apparently recurrent pattern, the time period between upswings or downswings tending to be around four to six years. This study considers its significance. There is a brief account of how periodicity relates to modern business cycle theory. Use is made of recent American data and data for Britain in the nineteenth century to show that recent British experience, although exceptional in degree, is not unique in character. An account is then given year-by-year of the course of the trade cycle from 1958 to 1982 using contemporary commentary and a simple econometric model. This behavioural explanation is shown to I encompass' a purely statistical model of recurrent cycles in the sense of showing why events do appear to repeat themselves at intervals of roughly five years.
