Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP18502
Authors: Stephen Broadberry; Jason Lennard
Abstract: The modern business cycle features long expansions combined with short recessions, and is thus related to the emergence of sustained economic growth. It also features significant international co-movement, and is therefore associated with growing market integration and globalisation. When did these patterns first appear? This paper explores the changing nature of the business cycle using historical national accounts for nine European economies between 1300 and 2000. For the sample as a whole, the modern business cycle emerged at the end of the eighteenth century.
Keywords: business cycle; economic growth; Europe
JEL Codes: N10; E32; O47
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Black Death (N94) | changes in labor supply and demand dynamics (J29) |
| changes in labor supply and demand dynamics (J29) | per capita income (D31) |
| Black Death (N94) | per capita income (D31) |
| industrial revolution (O14) | economic growth (O49) |
| depth of wartime contractions (H56) | strength of postwar recoveries (N14) |
| contractions (J41) | expansions (R12) |
| historical events (N94) | evolution of business cycles (E32) |