Recession ??

In economics, a recession is a general slowdown in economic activity over a sustained period of time, or a business cycle contraction. During recessions, many macroeconomic indicators vary in a similar way. Production as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), employment, investment spending, capacity utilization, household incomes and business profits all fall during recessions.

Governments usually respond to recessions by adopting expansionary macroeconomic policies, such as increasing money supply, increasing government spending and decreasing taxation.

In a 1975 New York Times article, economic statistician Julius Shiskin suggested several rules of thumb for identifying a recession, one of which was "two down quarters of GDP". In time, the other rules of thumb were forgotten, and a recession is now often defined simply as a period when GDP falls (negative real economic growth) for at least two quarters. Some economists prefer a definition of a 1.5% rise in unemployment within 12 months.

In the United States the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is generally seen as the authority for dating US recessions. The NBER defines an economic recession as: "a significant decline in [the] economic activity spread across the country, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP growth, real personal income, employment (non-farm payrolls), industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales." Almost universally, academics, economists, policy makers, and businesses defer to the determination by the NBER for the precise dating of a recession's onset and end.