The term business cycle (or economic cycle) refers to economy-wide fluctuations in production or economic activity over several months or years. These fluctuations occur around a long-term growth trend, and typically involve shifts over time between periods of relatively rapid economic growth (an expansion or boom), and periods of relative stagnation or decline (a contraction or recession).
Business cycles are usually measured by considering the growth rate of real gross domestic product. Despite being termed cycles, these fluctuations in economic activity do not follow a mechanical or predictable periodic pattern.
Read more about Business Cycle: Identifying, Explanations, Mitigating An Economic Downturn
Famous quotes containing the words business and/or cycle:
“Actually, if my business was legitimate, I would deduct a substantial percentage for depreciation of my body.
Contemplative and bookish men must of necessitie be more quarrelsome than others, because they contend not about matter of fact, nor can determine their controversies by any certain witnesses, nor judges. But as long as they goe towards peace, that is Truth, it is no matter which way.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“The cycle of the machine is now coming to an end. Man has learned much in the hard discipline and the shrewd, unflinching grasp of practical possibilities that the machine has provided in the last three centuries: but we can no more continue to live in the world of the machine than we could live successfully on the barren surface of the moon.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)