Business Cycles and Growth: Some Reflections and Measures

Is the long-term trend of the economy -- growth -- substantially influenced by the short-term movements -- business cycles -- and, if so, how? Are business cycles subject to major secular changes? Are these fluctuations the natural way growth takes in private enterprise economies or are they mainly due to some outside shocks that could be avoided or reduced? Should their analysis be based on trend-unadjusted or on trend-adjusted time series data? These are major questions that have received considerable attention in economic literature, but they are difficult and still debated. I cannot hope to resolve any of them in this paper, of course, but I shall attempt to contribute to the discussion of some aspects of how business cycles and growth are related.