Chapter 16
Understanding Why Recessions Happen
IN THIS CHAPTER
Visualizing the business cycle
The ideal: Letting price adjustments eliminate recessions
The reality: Coping with sticky prices and lingering recessions
Linking slow price adjustments to slow wage adjustments
Introducing the Keynesian model
Macroeconomists’ most daunting task is to try to prevent — or at least shorten — recessions, those periods of time during which the economy’s output of goods and services declines. Economists, politicians, and most other people who work for a living despise recessions because of the toll they exact in human suffering. That’s because when output falls, firms need fewer workers. The typical result is massive layoffs, which cause significant increases in unemployment. In large countries such as the United States, millions of workers lose their jobs and their ability to support themselves and their families.
In this chapter, I use the aggregate supply/aggregate demand model to show you ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access