The C.D. Howe Institute’s Business Cycle Council, Canada’s main arbiter of business cycle dates, has declared an end to the COVID-19 recession. The Council decided on August 9 to declare an end to the recession that began in March 2020. It judged that the recovery from the recession is now prolonged and sustained enough to … Continue reading
A survey, conducted by YPO, has revealed what business leaders think a recession sparked by COVID-19 could look like. 60% believe the recession will be U-shaped, whilst 22% believe it could be a ‘double dip’ recession. Many fear that their firms won’t be able to survive the crisis. Global business leaders are preparing for a … Continue reading
The Great Recession is remembered, and properly so, for its massive destruction of household wealth and job losses that reached over 800,000 in a single month. In just the fourth quarter of 2008, real GDP fell at an annual rate of 8.4 percent, while economies across the world were savaged by problems as bad as … Continue reading
Economic crises expose and exacerbate structural weaknesses. Analysis by The Economist of five decades of gdp data finds that growth rates in rich countries tend to converge during expansions, as even the weakest economies are pulled along. Yet during downturns performance diverges markedly. In the first half of the 2000s the average annual gap between … Continue reading
The concept of a recession is binary and blunt. All it says is that expectations have flipped from positive to negative growth, at least for two consecutive quarters. We think the bigger scenario question revolves around the shape of the shock — what we call “shock geometry” — and its structural legacy. What drives the … Continue reading
People working in legal occupations in the United States experience economic downturns differently than the labor market as a whole. With increased volatility in unemployment rates and significant gender gaps, the comparatively low unemployment in legal occupations may offer little comfort to those trying to maneuver the Covid-19 downturn. According to the Bureau of Labor … Continue reading
The International Monetary Fund said it expects a global recession this year that will be at least as bad as the downturn during the financial crisis more than a decade ago, followed by a recovery in 2021. Nearly 80 countries have asked the Washington-based IMF for emergency finance, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a … Continue reading
Canada’s economic growth ground to a halt in the fourth quarter of 2019. With the economy already on precarious footing, the added shocks of the recent rail blockade protests, the arrival of COVID-19, and a collapse in oil prices have brought the country to the brink of recession. Contents of the Spring 2020 summary: The … Continue reading
Experts from the Hamilton Project observe that two traditional methods of noting when recessions have started—waiting for an announcement from the National Bureau of Economic Research or observing GDP to decline over two consecutive quarters—“are appropriate for historical analysis but too slow to be useful for policy.” Instead, they explain a measure developed by economist … Continue reading
“Survey respondents indicate that the expansion will be extended by the shift in monetary policy, and most expect the next economic recession will occur later than anticipated when the February policy survey was conducted,” said NABE President Constance Hunter, CBE, chief economist, KPMG. “Of the 98% of respondents who believe a recession will come after … Continue reading
This paper estimates the effects of entering the labour market when the economy is weak on subsequent living standards using consistent long-running household survey data from the UK. In line with previous research, we find persistent scarring effects on employment and earnings. However, we also provide the first estimates of impacts on net household incomes … Continue reading
Canada’s economy contracted by an annualized 0.5 percent in the second quarter, according to Statistics Canada data on Tuesday, indicating a recession in the first half of the year. The second-quarter downturn was less than the 1.0 percent decline forecast by economists, and followed a more deeply revised contraction of 0.8 percent in the first … Continue reading
With 0il prices plunging almost 6o per cent and job cuts mounting within companies like Suncor Energy and Shell Canada, the spectre of recession has suddenly emerged in Alberta. After gushing about the “superstar” local economy at a speech in Calgary last November, the Conference Board of Canada’s chief economist, Glen Hodgson, ominously warned this week that “it’s going to be very … Continue reading
The economic collapse in the wake of the global financial crises (GFC) and the weaker-than-expected recovery in many countries have led to questions about the impact of severe downturns on economic potential. Indeed, for several major economies, the level of output is nowhere near returning to pre-crisis trend (figure 1). Such developments have resulted in … Continue reading
Economic crisis has led to crisis in the field of macroeconomics. The idea that depressions were a concept of only historic interest has been belied by the financial crisis and “Great Recession”. Figures 1a and 1b depicts the gap between actual and potential output estimated as of various dates for both the US and the … Continue reading