2003 EDITION
Monographs of official statistics Papers and proceedings of the colloquium on the history of business-cycle analysis
THEME 1 General EUROPEAN statistics COMMISSION 1 Europe Direct is a service to help you find answers to your questions about the European Union New freephone number: 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11
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Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2003
ISBN 92-894-5668-X ISSN 1725-5406
© European Communities, 2003 Monographs of official statistics Papers and proceedings of the colloquium on the history of business-cycle analysis
Edited by: Dominique Ladiray
Acknowledgements
This publication has been realised thanks to the support of 2SDA company. It contains the proceedings of the second colloquium on modern tools for business-cycle analysis. The subject of the colloquium was the history of business-cycle analysis.
Project management and coordination were ensured by Gian Luigi Mazzi and Klaus Reeh.
Eurostat would like to thank all the actors involved in the writing and preparation of this publication:
The authors of the different papers of the publication
· Michel Armatte (Université Paris IX - Dauphine) · Marcel Boumans (NIAS and University of Amsterdam) · Alain Carry (CNRS) · Alain Desrosières (INSEE) · Jacky Fayolle (OFCE) · Einar Lie (University of Oslo) · Mary S. Morgan (London School of Economics and University of Amsterdam) · J. Adam Tooze (University of Cambridge and Jesus College)
The Eurostat support and organisation team
· Nelly Da Silva · Jane Schofield
2SDA team
· Sylvie Da Silva (rereading of the text) · Madeleine Larue (desktop publishing) · Gabriella Manganelli (general coordination)
The views expressed in the publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Commission.
Introduction
Why a Eurostat colloquium about the history of business-cycle analysis?
Business cycles are always attracting a lot of public attention. The oldest example that I know of comes from the Bible (Genesis 41,29). Joseph had to interpret the Pharaoh's dream and came up with a simple business- cycle model: the total length of the cycle is 14 years, 7 abundant years followed by 7 lean years. In his capa- city as political adviser Josef suggested to the Pharaoh not only a theory (at that time yet to be tested empi- rically), but also a business-cycle policy to cope with the ups and downs. His 'Josephian stabilisation policy' is in stark contrast to what has become 'Keynesian stabilisation policy'. Josef suggested public savings while Keynes proposed public dissavings.
These days, no doubt, our business-cycle models and our stabilisation policies are a little bit more sophisti- cated. This has also a lot to do with replacing dreams by statistics, of course not so much by agricultural sta- tistics, but by a set of macroeconomic statistics.
We at Eurostat are fully aware that official (and non-official) statistics play an important role in dealing with the business-cycle phenomenon. The business cycle has always been (remember the biblical example) and will continue to be a theoretical construction. The cycle takes shape only through concepts and information, these days less dreams and more statistics. We, the statisticians, are called upon by business-cycle theorists and empiricists to provide the necessary information. Our statistics allow theorists and empiricists to discuss the business-cycle phenomenon in many ways: