An Improved Annual Chronology of U.S. Business Cycles since the 1790s

The NBER's pre–World War I dating of business cycles implies that the U.S. economy spent nearly every other year in recession. This article extends earlier efforts at redating for the 1796–1914 period using a single metric: Davis's (2004) annual industrial production index. The new chronology alters more than 40 percent of the peak and troughs and removes the most questionable cycles. An important implication of this is the lack of discernible differences in the frequency and duration of industrial cycles among the pre–Civil War, Civil War to World War I, and post–World War II periods.