Changes

::economists, conservative and liberal alike, have been using the NBER business cycle dating since the 1920s.  Milton Friedman, for example, did much of his best work for them, such as his famous "Monetary History". The "two-quarters" rule of thumb usually works and has the advantage that it comes out sooner. But it is not quite as reliable since the GDP data is just one of many indicators.  The NBER uses the GDP data (which is ambiguous) as well as many other time series.  The advantage is that it's quite non-partisan (unlike politicized government agencies). CP readers should be shown what the most reliable sources are for economic data. That's the NBER and I'm not sure what the aleternative is--no one has proposed some other authoritative source. [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 05:48, 23 December 2008 (EST)

::economists, conservative and liberal alike, have been using the NBER business cycle dating since the 1920s.  Milton Friedman, for example, did much of his best work for them, such as his famous "Monetary History". The "two-quarters" rule of thumb usually works and has the advantage that it comes out sooner. But it is not quite as reliable since the GDP data is just one of many indicators.  The NBER uses the GDP data (which is ambiguous) as well as many other time series.  The advantage is that it's quite non-partisan (unlike politicized government agencies). CP readers should be shown what the most reliable sources are for economic data. That's the NBER and I'm not sure what the aleternative is--no one has proposed some other authoritative source. [[User:RJJensen|RJJensen]] 05:48, 23 December 2008 (EST)