Cycles in macroeconomics

My main reason for starting this blog right now is to try and change the perception in economics that periodic cycles in macroeconomic activity do not exist. I'm sure that there are other comments on current issues will get posted here as well, but that's currently the central focus of my academic research.

One recent comment from a leading "mainstream" economist (who shall remain nameless, although he is on the NBER business cycle dating committee) that "there are no cycles with regular periodicities that show up in macroeconomic data" presents us with a conundrum, as we know there are irregular cycles in economic activity ( - why would anyone use the term "business cycle" if that wasn't the case). But the main philosophical point that this brings up is that most economists think that macroeconomic activity is not inherently cyclical - this is deeply engrained in our graduate school training, where economists talk about "steady-state growth paths" ( - meaning that the economy is growing at a constant fixed rate), with accompanying "shocks" which buffet the economy to create the cycles that we observe.

The main challenge for anyone working in this area is to explore whether these are naturally occurring cycles, or whether they are downturns caused by so-called random "shocks" ( - more on this later). Clearly one way to do this is to look and see if there are any long-term cycles in growth - if there are, as simple "shocks" cannot generate these types of cycles, this would suggest that there is cyclical activity inherent in economic growth, which of course suggests we should re-think the models that we use for macroeconomics.

But more about all of this later.