The NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee maintains a chronology of US business cycles. The chronology identifies the months of peaks and troughs of economic activity. Expansions are the periods between a trough and a peak; recessions are the periods between a peak and a trough. By convention, the NBER classifies the peak month as the last month of the expansion and the trough month as the last month of the recession. Expansion is the normal state of the economy; most recessions are brief....
