Business Cycles and Turning Points: A Survey of Statistical Techniques

The business cycle has an importance in the popular debate which can tend to run ahead of the problems in measuring it. This paper provides a survey of the main statistical techniques that are used to measure the cycle. An application to the UK illustrates that the choice of what measure, or measures, to use is more than a dry academic issue. Inference about the business cycle is potentially sensitive to measurement. Fortunately, however, there is an element of consensus.