Re: Leftists knocking Friedman ?

On Feb 19, 11:12 am, stuff_st...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:08:33 -0800 (PST), Lysander

> The data is clear. Recessions are happening less and less often, and
> are less severe. Growth is happening for longer sustained periods with
> short shallow
interruptions.http://www.dallasfed.org/research/eclett/2007/images/el0712c4.gif

Wrong. See Christina's Romer's work. This data is not properly
matched. GDP was measured differently in early periods. I think prior
to the 1970's but I need to look back to her work myself. You can't
convert the old data to the new data because the new method has things
added that were not recorded then. However, if you convert the new
data to the old data there is no change in the business cycle. The
growth is not for longer periods and the interruptions are not as
shallow if all GDP is measured in the old way. Another caveat of data.
Make sure your measures are the same. Just because the series has the
same name does not mean significant changes were not made in the
measurement.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/BusinessCycles.html

"But appearances are deceiving. The kind of statistics that economists
use to measure the severity of business cycles, such as data on the
unemployment rate, real gross national product, and industrial
production, have been kept carefully and consistently only since World
War II. Therefore, the conclusion that government policy has smoothed
business cycles is based on a comparison of fragmentary prewar
evidence with sophisticated postwar statistics."