There has been much discussion of the current cycle as a “Great Recession” and many over-stretched comparisons to the Great Depression. In the Cooley-Rupert Economic Snapshot, Peter Rupert (UCSB, director EFP) and Tom Cooley (NYU Stern) believe the best way to characterize the current state of the economy is to present the data in a way that allows comparison to the other post-1970 business cycles. You can find the blog here which provides a link to the snapshot whose data is updated continuously.

The paths of all the series presented are plotted relative to their value at the peak of the respective business cycles, the dates of which are identified by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The snapshot presents aggregate data in four sections. The first summarizes the path of Gross Domestic Product and its components – Consumption Investment and Government Spending – and some relevant subcomponents. The next section summarizes the labor market and its important indicators including employment and hours. The third sections shows the activity in credit markets and the final section summarizes the features of industrial production and inflation.

Below is an example of the analysis for Real Gross Domestic Product. The current cycle is marked in blue and explicitly shows where we are now as compared to past cycles. 15 months after the peak of business activity, output lags significantly behind its trend in the 4 comparison cycles. Of the 4 comparison cycles, it has taken on average 5.25 quarters for output to return to at or above its peak level. However for current cycle, output continues to remain below its level in the 4th quarter of 2007.

Stay tuned to the EFP blog for similar local tri-county analysis.

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