King Banaian, who does business economics in Northern Pacific country, has a delightful elaboration.“Even when a recession is over, unemployment continues to rise,” [current economics chairman Carl] Campbell said. “The labor market is usually the last to recover.”
After other recessions, unemployment rates continued to rise for a significant period of time, Campbell said.
Stephen Karlson, associate professor of economics, said those who say the recession is over are only making conversation.
“We really don’t know it’s over until well after,” Karlson said.
Until two consecutive quarters of economic growth are recorded, economists can’t say for sure that the recession is over, Karlson said.
Campbell said he thinks the recession is probably over, but until data is released for the third quarter, which ended in September, we will not know indefinatly [c.q.].
Like Scott Beaulier, I have been asked whether the latest NABE survey that 80% of its respondents think the recession is over is true. And like Beaulier, my first answer is that "it's a survey" which is asking in effect the question "when the NBER business cycle dating committee dates the trough of the Great Recession, what date do you think they'll put on it." Since the survey was done in September, the respondents are saying "we think they'll set it sometime in July or August" (I doubt anyone would say it ended in the second quarter.) We looked at that data last week and you'll know I concluded that "we need a certain move in GDP AND in employment" before we should put a date on it. So I'm in the 20% on that one, but maybe I'm just a lagging indicator :) As I noted, the second derivative issue (or, if you will, the inflection point issue) is a real problem for any forecaster, as Beaulier acknowledges in his third point. We agree there.Heck, if any of us could call the turns ahead of time, we wouldn't be teaching at regional comprehensives and giving interviews to local reporters, would we?
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