Five questions about business cycles
提出关于经济周期本质的五个基本问题，并综述相关最新研究，重点分析扩张与收缩的持续时间、周期变量的协同动态以及宏观经济波动的预测。
This article considers Þve broad questions about the fundamental nature of business cycles and surveys relevant recent research. It is a slightly revised version of the introductory chapter to our book, Business Cycles: Durations, Dynamics, and Forecasting (Diebold and Rudebusch 1999). Both the book and this article attempt to place recent empirical business cycle research, and especially our own work, in a broader perspective. In particular, we focus on research that analyzes the durations or lengths of expansions and contractions, the co-movement and dynamics of cyclical variables, and the prediction of macroeconomic ßuctuations.