美国这次经济危机自2007年12月起算

 

黄安年文  黄安年的博客/2008年12月4日发布

 

美国的国家经济研究局企业周期认定委员会（The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research）最近表示，美国经济从2007年12月以来，就已经陷入衰退。对于美国经济周期认定而言美国的国家经济研究局的宣布无疑是最具权威性的,该委员会同时认定上一次的美国经济扩张期是2001年11月-2007年11月,时间为73个月。小布什总统上台时正是由经济复苏转入经济扩展开始年,在他八年中，经历了2001-11-2007-11的扩张期和2001-01-10---2001-10的复苏期及2007-12—2009-01的衰退期，96个月中有73个月处于持续扩张期。

 

美国的国家经济研究局通常认定经济活动连续两个季度出现萎缩就意味着经济进入衰退期,按照这个通常的认定方法,是不能从2007年12月开始的。（见《美国正由金融危机走向经济危机》黄安年的博客/2008年10月31日发布，文中说:“目前媒体对于美国金融和经济形势恶化的描述五花八门。美国判定经济是否陷入衰退的权威机构——美国全国经济研究局迄今仍未明确表态,按照美国全国经济研究局的衰退标准,如果连续两个季度经济出现负增长，即可认为经济已陷入衰退。有报道说,‘去年第四季度美国经济下降了0．2％，但今年第一季度则上升了0．9％，第二季度却增长了1．9％。美国商务部３０日公布的初步数据显示，今年第三季度美国经济按年率计算下滑０．３％，为２００１年第三季度以来的最大降幅。从目前来看，第四季度美国经济多半仍会延续这种下滑态势，因此美国经济很可能难免衰退命运。’我们不妨可以作出这样的估量，美国正由金融危机走向经济危机，如果目前美国政府无力制止金融形势恶化，如果11月15日华盛顿20国政府首脑会议无功而返,如果国际经济形势恶化加剧美国经济恶化蔓延，那么很可能美国第四季度的负增长难逃厄运，这样一来，新任美国总统就职之时,也将是美国经济正式步入衰退期之始，美国现任总统面临的首要问题自然是应对美国的经济危机了。”

 

现在美国国家经济研究局作出了新的界定，该委员会说：“所谓衰退是指整个经济体的经济活动大幅滑落，持续多月，通常可由生产、就业和实质所得等指标观察。”这个界定将美国金融次贷危机的严重恶果蔓延为金融危机计算在内(没有从2007年4月开始计算,而是从2007年第四季度美国经济下降了0．2％的最后一个月来计算,也意味着对于2008年第一季度则上升了0．9％，2008年报第二季度增长了1．9％。并没有对“整个经济体的经济活动大幅滑落，持续多月”发生重要影响。

 

 

附相关报道:

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日期:2008-12-02　　　作者:亚军　　　2008年第46期

美国的国家经济研究局企业周期认定委员会（The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research）最近表示，美国经济从2007年12月以来，就已经陷入衰退。

 

尽管一般将衰退界定为经济活动连续两个季度出现萎缩，但周期认定委员会另有认定的标准。该委员会说：“所谓衰退是指整个经济体的经济活动大幅滑落，持续多月，通常可由生产、就业和实质所得等指标观察。”

 

该委员会还说：“本会在认定2007年12月之后的经济活动萎缩已达衰退幅度后，将2007年12月鉴定为高峰月。”“高峰意谓2001年11月开始的扩张终止，衰退开始。这一波扩张持续了73个月，至于1990年代的上1次扩张则持续了120个月。”

 

亚军，《华盛顿观察》2008年第46期，12/3/2008

http://www.washingtonobserver.org/financial_information_show.aspx?id=2792

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U.S. Recession Started in 2007, Longest Since 1980s

 

By Timothy R. Homan and Steve Matthews

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy entered a recession a year ago this month, the panel that dates American business cycles said today, making this contraction already the longest since 1982.

The declaration was made by a committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private, nonprofit group of economists based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The last time the U.S. was in a recession was from March through November 2001, according to NBER.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke today said the economy “will probably remain weak for a time” and the Fed may use unconventional methods, such as buying Treasury securities, to spur growth. Should the recession persist for another five months, consistent with Fed and private forecasts, it would become the longest since the Great Depression.

“It is clearly not going to end in a few months,” Jeffrey Frankel, a member of the NBER committee and a professor at Harvard University, said in an interview. “We would be lucky to get done with it in the middle of next year.”

Separate reports today showed the recession has deepened. U.S. manufacturing contracted in November at the fastest rate in 26 years, according to the Institute for Supply Management, based in Tempe, Arizona. The Commerce Department said construction spending fell more than forecast in October as a slump in homebuilding spread to non-residential projects.

Stocks Slump

Stocks worldwide tumbled and yields on U.S. Treasury securities fell to the lowest ever on concern a lack of financing will stunt consumer and business spending.

The NBER designation means the U.S. was the first country to have slipped into a contraction. While definitions differ, the economies of both the euro area and Japan fell into a slump in the second quarter of this year, making it the first simultaneous recession in the three regions in the postwar era.

The loss of 1.2 million jobs so far this year was the biggest factor in determining the starting point of the U.S. recession, the NBER said. By that measure, the contraction probably deepened last month.

Payroll employment probably fell by 325,000 in November, the most since the last recession, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News ahead of a Labor Department report due Dec. 5. The jobless rate is projected to increase to 6.8 percent, the highest level since 1993.

Payrolls Drop

U.S. employers cut 240,000 jobs in October, a 10th consecutive decline. The unemployment rate rose to 6.5 percent, the highest level in 14 years, according to Labor Department statistics.

At 12 months, the current contraction is already the longest since the 16-month slump that ended in November 1982, and exceeds the postwar average of 10 months.

The contraction is the second under President George W. Bush’s watch, making him the first U.S. leader since Richard Nixon to preside over two recessions.

“The most important things we can do for the economy right now are to return the financial and credit markets to normal, and to continue to make progress in housing, and that’s where we’ll continue to focus,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto, said in an e-mailed statement. “Addressing these areas will do the most right now to return the economy to growth and job creation.”

Summers, More Action

Lawrence Summers, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick for White House economic adviser, said the economy is getting worse and requires more legislative action.

“Recent economic evidence suggests that the pace of this downturn is accelerating,” Summers said in a statement. He said Obama wants to enact a recovery package “soon after taking office.”

The likely length of this downturn may cast doubt on economists’ view that the business cycle was moderating in recent decades.

“Everyone had thought long, deep recessions were a thing of the past,” Frankel said. “There was a lot of talk of the new economy.”

Although a recession is conventionally defined as two quarters of successive contraction in gross domestic product, the private committee doesn’t require supporting GDP data to make a recession call. Its members focus on month-to-month changes in the economy.

The NBER committee defines a recession as a “significant” decrease in activity over a sustained period of time. The decline would be visible in gross domestic product, payrolls, industrial production, sales and incomes.

Getting Worse

The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.5 percent pace in the third quarter after expanding 2.8 percent in the previous three months. Economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley in New York are among those projecting the economy will contract at a 5 percent pace this quarter.

Members of the committee are Frankel; Stanford University professor Robert Hall; Martin Feldstein of Harvard University; Northwestern University economics professor Robert Gordon; NBER president James Poterba; David Romer of the University of California at Berkeley; and Conference Board economist Victor Zarnowitz.

To contact the reporters on this story: Timothy R. Homan in Washington at thoman1@bloomberg.netSteve Matthews in Atlanta at smatthews@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 1, 2008 16:56 EST

 

NBER Declares Official Recession

Cambridge-based think tank dates start of recession

Published On Tuesday, December 02, 2008 1:13 AM

By JUNE Q. WU

 

 

As the financial system has collapsed over the past year, everyone from policymakers to media commentators has fretted about whether or not the crisis would spillover into the broader economy. Yesterday, the fears were confirmed when the Cambridge-based National Bureau of Economic Research officially declared that the U.S. economy is in a recession, and has been for nearly a year.

 

The bureau’s seven-member Business Cycle Dating Committee, which is officially charged with determining when the U.S. is in a recession, announced yesterday that the last peak in economic activity occurred in December 2007, marking that month as the start of the current recession.

 

The committee pinpointed the month when U.S. growth dipped into negative territory by using monthly indicators including gross domestic product and consumption measures, most of which have plunged in recent months.

 

MIT economics professor James M. Poterba ’80, the president of the NBER and a member of the business cycle committee, said yesterday that payroll employment is the strongest indicator in determining the highest point of economic activity.

 

The measure reached a peak last December and has declined every month since then.

 

“This doesn’t provide new information on where the economy is at this moment,” Poterba said. “This is really a determination of the turning point—and we don’t know when the next turning point may be.”

 

The announcement marks the first official recession since 2001, when the economy took a hit after the dot-com bubble burst.

 

Since the announcement did not come as a surprise—many economists have been warning of a recession for months—Poterba said he thought that the psychological consequences of the official declaration would be modest.

 

Though there was a broad selloff in the stock market yesterday, including a nearly 700 point decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Harvard Kennedy School professor Jeffrey A. Frankel, who is also on the committee, said that he does not think the announcement was responsible.

 

Though the committee does not recommend steps to pull the nation out of the recession, Poterba, Frankel, and committee member Robert E. Hall of Stanford said that policies should be aimed at creating a large stimulus to aid the ailing economy.

 

“Many people are saying across the political spectrum that a good-old fashioned stimulus is what we need in the short term,” Frankel said. “I think it’s very important that [fiscal policies] be well targeted and well designed and do the minimum damage to the long-term fiscal health.”

 

But Frankel cautioned policymakers not to repeat the mistakes of the 2001 Bush tax cuts, which Frankel said have resulted in “maximum damage to income distribution.”

 

“I hope tax cuts are better targeted than that,” Frankel said. “It should be possible to give a lot of fiscal stimulus in the short term without locking in a fiscal disaster for the long term.”

 

—Staff writer June Q. Wu can be reached at junewu@fas.harvard.edu.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=525653

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