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Publisher Council on Foreign Relations
Release Date January 18, 2012
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How do the recent economic collapse and recovery match up with past cycles? This chart book provides a series of answers, plotting current indicators (in red) against the average of all post–World War II recessions (in blue). To facilitate comparisons, the data are centered on the beginning of the recession (marked by "0"). The dotted lines are composites representing the mildest and the most severe experiences in past cycles. Because the downturn has been compared to the Great Depression, the appendix plots the recent trend lines against the 1930s.
Appendix: The Current Recession Compared to the Prewar Average and the Great Depression
The economic cycle framework can be used to compare the current cycle to prewar (World War II) recessions and the Great Depression. The thick red line represents the current recession; the thin blue line, the postwar average; the thick green line, the Great Depression; and the thin gold line, the prewar average.
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