The Rediscovery Of The Business Cycle

How can you make wise decisions about your company and your personal future when you have no idea where the economy is headed? The answer is, you can’t. But you can learn how to accurately predict turns in the economy so that you can see the road ahead. And BEATING THE BUSINESS CYCLE shows you how. In BEATING THE BUSINESS CYCLE, Lakshman Achuthan and Anirvan Banerji, the directors of the renowned Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) show how anyone can predict and profit from the inevitable booms and busts of the economy. Why should we believe them? Because while so many economists and financial gurus have failed to predict recessions in the past, ECRI’s forecasts are known for being uncannily accurate. The institute successfully predicted the U.S. recession of 2001 many months before the economists did; the 1990 recession and later recovery; and most recently, the weak U.S. recovery in 2002. ECRI is in constant demand by corporate America and the media. It is the “secret weapon” of companies from Disney to DuPont, the major fund managers, and many central banks. BEATING THE BUSINESS CYCLE is the first book to reveal how decision makers at all levels–managers, small business owners, and individuals–can see into the economy’s future when making key decisions. Should a large company search out new clients and build new factories or stores, or should it consider cost cutting and layoffs? Is it the right time for you to splurge on that luxury vacation or addition to your house, or would it be more prudent to cut back on big expenditures and save money for a rainy day? Written in an easy-to-understand, accessible style, BEATING THE BUSINESS CYCLE reveals which of the hundreds of economic indicators to trust and which ones to trash. It will give you the tools and confidence you need to make the right decisions at the right times–even when the rest of the investing and business world would persuade you otherwise. Whether you are a corporate manager or the owner of a small business, whether you have your money invested in stocks or in your home, BEATING THE BUSINESS CYCLE will give you the edge you need to trump the competition and stay ahead of the crowd.

'The diligent seeker of truth about our current discontents should turn to. . . The Rediscovery of Classical Economics, by David Simpson. . . Its ostensible object is to resurrect what he calls the "classical tradition" emanating from Adam Smith and distinguish it not only from Keynesian economics but also from today's mainstream known to aficionados as the "neoclassical" orthodoxy. Without going into academic details, this orthodoxy stands accused of replacing a theory of relative prices (how many loaves will buy a pullover) with a more sophisticated account of economic growth, and of foisting on us a theory of "rational expectations" that are anything but rational.' Samuel Brittan, Financial Times 'This book puts human beings back at the heart of the economic process. It shows how this classical, human-centred tradition, stretching from Adam Smith onward, gives us a much better understanding of economic events and what to do about them than the mechanistic, mathematical models of too many economists and planners today.' Eamonn Butler, The Adam Smith Institute, UK 'David Simpson writes about key economic issues with admirable lucidity. He draws deeply on experience as well as on his knowledge of economic theory.' Asa Briggs David Simpson skilfully argues that a market economy can be best understood as a human complex system, a perspective that represents a continuation of the classical tradition in economic thought. In the classical tradition, growth rather than allocative efficiency is the principal object of enquiry, economic phenomena are recognised to be elements of processes rather than structures, and change is evolutionary. The book shows the common principles that connect the early classical school, the Austrian school and complexity theory in a single line of thought. It goes on to show how these principles can be applied to explain the characteristic features of a market economy namely incessant change, growth, the business cycle and the market process itself and argues that static equilibrium theory, whether neoclassical or neo-Keynesian, cannot satisfactorily account for these phenomena. This fascinating book will provide a stimulating read for academics, postgraduate students and all those with an interest in economic theory and economic policy.

Why do we experience business cycles? What creates them? Is it mass psychology, or phenomena in the management of business? Are the banks to blame or should we be looking to the unions and the politicians? Lars Tvede's story moves back in time to the Scottish gambler and financial genius, John Law, and then on to the distracted Adam Smith, the stockbroker Ricardo, the investment banker Thornton, the extrovert Schumpeter, the speculator Jay Gould and many others. The computer jugglers of the modern day, with giant networks of equations, try to solve the same questions that have attracted the attention of classical economists throughout the centuries. Throughout this volume, business cycle theories are used to explain actual events. Theoretical thinking has reflected the economist's own experiences of hyper-inflations, depressions, speculation orgies and liquidity squeezes. The reader can follow the narrative to discover how economists often thought that problems had been solved until new data changed the economic picture once again.

This volume presents the most complete collection available of the work of Victor Zarnowitz, a leader in the study of business cycles, growth, inflation, and forecasting.. With characteristic insight, Zarnowitz examines theories of the business cycle, including Keynesian and monetary theories and more recent rational expectation and real business cycle theories. He also measures trends and cycles in economic activity; evaluates the performance of leading indicators and their composite measures; surveys forecasting tools and performance of business and academic economists; discusses historical changes in the nature and sources of business cycles; and analyzes how successfully forecasting firms and economists predict such key economic variables as interest rates and inflation.

"Is the business cycle obsolete?" This often cited title of a book edited by Bronfenbren ner with the implicit affirmation of the question reflected the attitude of mainstream macroeconomics in the 1960s regarding the empirical relevance of cyclic motions of an economy. The successful income policies, theoretically grounded in Keynesian macroec onomics, seemed to have eased or even abolished the fluctuations in Western economies which motivated studies of many classical and neoclassical economists for more than 100 years. The reasoning behind the conviction that business cycles would increasingly be come irrelevant was rather simple: if an economy fluctuates for whatever reason, then it is almost always possible to neutralize these cyclic motions by means of anticyclic demand policies. From the 1950s until the mid-1960s business cycle theory had often been consid ered either as an appendix to growth theory or as an academic exercise in dynamical economics. The common business cycle models were essentially multiplier-accelerator models whose dependence on particular parameter values (in order to exhibit oscillatory motion) suggested a rather improbable occurrence of persistent fluctuations. The obvi ous success in compensating business cycles in those days prevented intensive concern with the occurrence of cycles. Rather, business cycle theory turned into stabilization theory which investigated theoretical possibilities of stabilizing a fluctuating economy. Many macroeconomic textbooks appeared in the 1960s which consequently identified business cycle theory with inquiries on the possibilities to stabilize economies by means of active fiscal or monetary policies.

These proceedings, from a conference held at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis on October 17-18, 1991, attempted to layout what we currently know about aggregate economic fluctuations. Identifying what we know inevitably reveals what we do not know about such fluctuations as well. From the vantage point of where the conference's participants view our current understanding to be, these proceedings can be seen as suggesting an agenda for further research. The conference was divided into five sections. It began with the formu lation of an empirical definition of the "business cycle" and a recitation of the stylized facts that must be explained by any theory that purports to capture the business cycle's essence. After outlining the historical develop ment and key features of the current "theories" of business cycles, the conference evaluated these theories on the basis of their ability to explain the facts. Included in this evaluation was a discussion of whether (and how) the competing theories could be distinguished empirically. The conference then examined the implications for policy of what is known and not known about business cycles. A panel discussion closed the conference, high lighting important unresolved theoretical and empirical issues that should be taken up in future business cycle research. What Is a Business Cycle? Before gaining a genuine understanding of business cycles, economists must agree and be clear about what they mean when they refer to the cycle.