America's First Great Moderation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: The Vanguard Group, Inc.; Chapman University System; Chapman University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S002205071700081X
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 1116-1143
• 关键词: UNITED-STATES; business cycles; industrial-production; antebellum; index

摘要

We identify the longest expansion in U.S. history, a recession-free 16-year period from 1841 to 1856 that we call America's First Great Moderation. Using newer data on industrial production, we show that the record-long expansion was primarily driven by a boom in transportation-goods investment following the discovery of gold in California. Furthermore, the low volatility of industrial production and stock returns during the First Great Moderation, which occurred during a period without a U.S. central bank, is similar to that observed for the Second Great Moderation (1984-2007).