📄️ What is the business cycle?
Learn what the business cycle is, its four phases (expansion, peak, recession, trough), and how economies oscillate between growth and contraction. Foundation for understanding economic patterns.
📄️ The expansion phase
Learn what happens during economic expansion, how employment grows, businesses invest, and confidence builds. Understand the dynamics that drive sustained growth.
📄️ The peak phase
Learn what happens at the business cycle peak when growth reaches its maximum. Understand the signs of late-cycle vulnerability and why recessions follow peaks.
📄️ The recession phase
Learn what happens during recession when GDP falls, unemployment rises, and confidence evaporates. Understand how recessions spread and the economic mechanisms that deepen downturns.
📄️ The trough phase
Learn what happens at the trough phase, the lowest point of the business cycle. Understand when the economy stops contracting and recovery begins.
📄️ The recovery phase
Learn what happens during the recovery phase when the economy rebounds from recession. Understand why recoveries are initially rapid but uneven, and how recovery transitions to expansion.
📄️ NBER recession definition
Learn how the NBER officially defines recessions, why their definition matters more than the two-quarter rule, and how economists declare economic downturns.
📄️ Two-quarter recession rule
Understand the two-quarter technical recession rule, why it's a popular shorthand for defining recessions, and how it differs from the NBER's official definition.
📄️ Leading economic indicators
Learn what leading economic indicators are, how they forecast recessions and expansions, and which measures predict economic turning points.
📄️ Coincident indicators
Learn what coincident economic indicators are, how they move with the economy in real time, and why they confirm that a business cycle turning point has arrived.
📄️ Lagging indicators
Learn what lagging economic indicators are, why they change after the economy shifts, and how they confirm that a recession or expansion is real.
📄️ Yield curve recession signal
Understand how the yield curve signals recessions, why it inverts before downturns, and how to interpret the yield curve as a leading indicator.
📄️ Soft landing vs hard landing
Learn the difference between a soft landing and a hard landing in economics, and why central banks work to achieve soft economic slowdowns.
📄️ The output gap explained
Understand what the output gap is, how economists measure it, and why it matters for inflation and unemployment forecasts.
📄️ What is potential GDP?
Learn what potential GDP means, how economists estimate it, and why it's crucial for inflation forecasts and monetary policy.
📄️ Real business cycle theory
Understand real business cycle theory, how productivity shocks drive recessions, and why monetary policy may be less powerful than economists once thought.
📄️ The Keynesian business cycle
Understand Keynesian economics and how demand shocks, sticky prices, and credit constraints drive business cycles and recessions.
📄️ Credit cycle vs business cycle
Learn how credit cycles and business cycles interact. Credit drives growth, defaults cause crashes. Essential for investors.
📄️ The inventory cycle explained
How inventory swings drive GDP volatility. Retailers overbuy, then slash orders. A hidden driver of recessions.
📄️ The capex cycle explained
Capital expenditure cycles drive long-term growth. Why businesses cut investment first in downturns, and why recovery lags.
📄️ Global vs domestic business cycles
Global and domestic cycles often diverge. Trade links them, but timing differs. Key for international investors.
📄️ Investing through the business cycle
Cycle investing strategies: value in downturns, growth in booms. Asset allocation over time. Tactical positioning matters.