“This book offers an analytic description of the complicated processes by which seasons of business prosperity, crisis, depression, and revival come about in the modern world. The materials used consist chiefly of market reports and statistics concerning the business cycles which have run their course since 1890 in the United States, England, Germany and France.”

—  Wesley Clair Mitchell

Preface
Business Cycles, 1913

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "This book offers an analytic description of the complicated processes by which seasons of business prosperity, crisis, …" by Wesley Clair Mitchell?
Wesley Clair Mitchell photo
Wesley Clair Mitchell 4
American statistician 1874–1948

Related quotes

Arthur F. Burns photo

“Business cycles are a type of fluctuation found in the aggregate activity of nations that organize their work mainly in business enterprises: a cycle consists of expansions occurring at about the same time in many economic activities, followed by similarly general recessions, contractions, and revivals which merge into the expansion phase of the next cycle; this sequence of changes is recurrent but not periodic; in duration business cycles vary from more than one year to ten or twelve years; they are not divisible into shorter cycles of similar character with amplitudes approximating their own.”

Arthur F. Burns (1904–1987) American economist and diplomat

Arthur F. Burns and George W. Mitchell (1946). Measuring business cycles. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research. p. 3; Cited in: Robert J. Gordon, ed. The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, 1986. p. 2

“But business cycles as a subject for study have enjoyed a revival for at least a decade now, stimulated in part by the severity of the 1974-75 and 1981-82 recessions and in part by the intellectual ferment surrounding the development of the "equilibrium business cycle model" and the attention paid to the seminal work of Robert E. Lucas, Jr., contained in his book Studies in Business Cycle Theory (1981). Indeed, there is no longer any need to lament the passing of economics courses explicitly carrying the title "Business Cycles," since the topic of business cycle behavior and analysis has so infiltrated courses carrying the title "Macroeconomics" that the two subjects have become almost interchangeable. 2 In this light it is fitting that the major research program of the NBER in this area is called "Economic Fluctuations" rather than "Macroeconomics."”

Robert J. Gordon (1940) American economist

Source: The American Business Cycle, 1986, p. 2

“The postwar era has not surprised Arthur Burns, for business cycles have continued their "unceasing round." although the United States recession of 1981-82 was the eighth since World War II and the deepest postwar slump by almost any measure, the 1983-84 recovery displayed an upward momentum sufficient to befuddle forecasters and delight incumbent politicians. Nor would a reincarnated Joseph Schumpeter be disappointed in the current status of business cycle research in the economics profession. To be sure, interest in business cycles decayed during the prosperity of the 1960s, as symbolized in the 1969 conference volume, Is the Business Cycle Obsolete? and in Paul Samuelson's remark the same year that the National Bureau of Economic Research "has worked itself out of one of its first jobs, namely, the business cycle."”

Robert J. Gordon (1940) American economist

Source: The American Business Cycle, 1986, p. 1-2

William F. Sharpe photo

“Any graduate of the ___ Business School should be able to beat an index fund over the course of a market cycle.”

William F. Sharpe (1934) American economist

Statements such as these are made with alarming frequency by investment professionals. In some cases, subtle and sophisticated reasoning may be involved. More often (alas), the conclusions can only be justified by assuming that the laws of arithmetic have been suspended for the convenience of those who choose to pursue careers as active managers.
William F Sharpe, "The arithmetic of active management." Financial Analysts Journal 47.1 (1991): 7-9.

William Trufant Foster photo

“At home, as well as abroad, there is paralyzing uncertainty among business men as to whether the Reserve Board will allow that expansion of bank credit without which such prosperity as we have had in recent years simply cannot last. In short, the Board has created a state of mind which breeds business depression.”

William Trufant Foster (1879–1950) American economist

Foster and Catchings, in: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 144, (1929), p. 102; cited in: William J. Barber. From New Era to New Deal. 1988, p. 77.

“Since the late 1960s macroeconomic debates in the United States have centered on the competing interpretations of the new classical and new Keynesian macroeconomics. The initial new classical model developed in the early 1970s by Robert E. Lucas, Jr., combined market-clearing, imperfect information, and rational expectations. After much testing, it was eventually rejected in the late 1970s for failing to explain why business cycles lasted on average four years while information delays lasted only a few weeks. It was soon replaced by a second new classical approach, the Real Business Cycle (RBC) model, which was also based on continuous market clearing and competitive equilibrium, but now generated the business cycle through serially correlated procyclical technology shocks.”

Robert J. Gordon (1940) American economist

Robert J. Gordon, Are Procyclical Productivity Fluctuations a Figment of Measurement Error? (1992).

“The market remained the generator of demand for goods and services, but modern business enterprise took over the functions of coordinating flows of goods and services through existing processes of production and distribution, and of allocating funds and personnel for future production and distribution. As modern business enterprise acquired functions hitherto carried out by the market, it became the most powerful institution in the American economy and its managers the most influential group of economic decision makers. The rise of modern business enterprise in the United States, therefore, brought with it managerial capitalism.”

Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. (1918–2007) American historian

Source: The Visible Hand (1977), p. 1.

Calvin Coolidge photo

“After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925)
Context: There does not seem to be cause for alarm in the dual relationship of the press to the public, whereby it is on one side a purveyor of information and opinion and on the other side a purely business enterprise. Rather, it is probable that a press which maintains an intimate touch with the business currents of the nation, is likely to be more reliable than it would be if it were a stranger to these influences. After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of opinion that the great majority of people will always find these are moving impulses of our life. The opposite view was oracularly and poetically set forth in those lines of Goldsmith which everybody repeats, but few really believe: 'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.'.

Ai Weiwei photo

“Because of the economic crisis, China and the United States are bound together. This is a totally new phenomenon, and nobody will fight for ideology anymore. It’s all about business.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2000-09, Who Is Ai Weiwei?, 2009

Marc Benioff photo

“When I went to business school, they said, "Focus on your shareholder, Marc. The business of business is business." That no longer applies. We have to erase that from our history books. The business of business is improving the state of the world.”

Marc Benioff (1964) American businessman

CNBC: Marc Benioff: We bought Time Magazine because 'business is the greatest platform for change' https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/25/benioff-bought-time-because-business-is-greatest-platform-for-change.html (25 September 2018)

Related topics