We study the duration distribution of recessions and recoveries occurred in a pool of industrialized countries during the last 120 years. We find that for recessions the duration is distributed according to a power law, and that the power exponent is virtually invariant as we split up the time...

Are expansions and recessions more likely to end as their magnitude increases? In this paper we apply parametric hazard models to investigate this issue in a sample of 16 countries from 1881 to 2000. For the total sample we find evidence of positive magnitude dependence for recessions, while for...