Center for Business and Economic Research - Ball State University


CBER Data Center
Projects and PublicationsEconomic IndicatorsWeekly CommentaryCommunity Asset InventoryManufacturing Scorecard

About

Commentaries are published weekly and distributed through the Indianapolis Business Journal and many other print and online publications. Disclaimer

RSS Feed

Disclaimer

The views expressed in these commentaries do not reflect those of Ball State University or the Center for Business and Economic Research.

Recent

Two Key Economic Lessons in One BillHoosiers face trade-offs and opportunity costs in the wake of SEA1.

Time to Fix Economic Development PolicyAllocating tax dollars to land development won’t cause economic growth.

The Unanticipated Effects of SB1Businesses, governments and households may all feel the effects.

The Stupidest of PoliciesThis whipsawing of tariff rates has unnerved financial markets, which on Wednesday, were toying with a liquidity crisis.

View archives

Top Tags

jobs and employment 261
economics 201
state and local government 188
education 186
economic development 171
indiana 171
budget and spending 145
taxes 144
law and public policy 142
workforce and human capital 139
Browse all tags
Reporter / Admin Login

July 25, 2003

Recession in the Rear-View Mirror

Can the U.S. economy be said to be out of recession when employers are still shedding jobs?  The official scorekeepers of U.S.business cycles at the National Bureau of Economic Research said "yes" late last week, and officially declared the recession of 2001 to be over.  But the long time they took in deliberating over their decision tells us that it wasn't an easy call.

In one sense that seems quite odd, because by the most comprehensive measure we have of economic activity -- Gross Domestic Product-- the recession of 2001 was a very mild one. Buoyed by consumer spending, which never retreated at any time during the entire downturn, the dip in economic output suffered during the first three quarters of 2001 was quickly made up in just three quarters thereafter.  That makes this recession the mildest on record for more than 30 years.  

That might come as a surprise to anyone who has been reading the headlines for the last few years.  It’s tempting to simply blame this on the business media, whose skill at delivering bad news is hard to overestimate. But the truth is that this really has been a very severe recession, at least for some pieces of the overall economy.

When you look at business investment,manufacturing employment, and stock market returns, this recession ranks with the worst of them all.  When you put it all together, it's clear that you can't really talk about the recession of 2001 without describing the boom that preceded it.

That boom helps explain how the economy could continue to operate -- with rising productivity, no less -- with such dismal levels of business investment.  Beginning three quarters before the official start of the recession in the spring of 2001, inflation-corrected business fixed investment tumbled by more than 13 percent.  It has not budged significantly from that low point since.  A "typical" recession would see declines in investment between 2-4 percent, with recovery kicking in much earlier.

Everything that led to two-fisted spending in the years prior to 2000 -- the rise of the internet, the Y2K scare, and the deregulation of the telecom industries -- has seemed to turn on a dime in the time since.  The data clearly indicate that businesses across all sectors of the economy have been learning how to get more out of the equipment they already have.

Of course, most companies' stock prices had sunk so low that there was really little other alternative.  The decline in the S&P 500 index mirrors the behavior of investment spending almost exactly, except with even more severity.  Down by more than 40 percent since the pre-recession peak, the market's plunge has been more severe, and more prolonged, than recessions past.

The behavior of employment in the current recession, on the other hand, does find some precedent in our recent history.  The second consecutive "jobless recovery" -- the first being the next most recent recession of 1991 -- tells us something important about how labor markets have changed.  The extensive use of temporary and contract employees, the prevalence of just-in-time production methods, and the necessity of improving productivity to compete in the global marketplace have made businesses more hesitant to ramp up payrolls in the mere anticipation of increased demand.

If it doesn't feel like a recovery outside the window of your business, take heart.  You are not alone.  But it’s something we're all going to have to get used to.

Link to this commentary: https://commentaries.cberdata.org/361/recession-in-the-rear-view-mirror

Tags: recession


About the Author

Pat Barkey none@example.com

Patrick Barkey is director of the University of Montana Bureau of Business and Economic Research. He served previously as Director of the Bureau of Business Research (now the Center for Business and Economic Research) at Ball State University, overseeing and participating in a wide variety of projects in labor market research and state and regional economic policy issues. Note: The views expressed here are solely those of the author, and do not represent those of funders, associations, any entity of Ball State University, or its governing body.

© Center for Business and Economic Research, Ball State University

About Ball State CBER Data Center

Ball State CBER Data Center is one-stop shop for economic data including demographics, education, health, and social capital. Our easy-to-use, visual web tools offer data collection and analysis for grant writers, economic developers, policy makers, and the general public.

Ball State CBER Data Center (cberdata.org) is a product of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University. CBER's mission is to conduct relevant and timely public policy research on a wide range of economic issues affecting the state and nation. Learn more.

Terms of Service

Center for Business and Economic Research

Ball State University • Whitinger Business Building, room 149
2000 W. University Ave.
Muncie, IN 47306-0360
Phone:
765-285-5926
Email:
cber@bsu.edu
Website:
www.bsu.edu/cber
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/BallStateCBER
Twitter:
www.twitter.com/BallStateCBER
Close