The Great Deleveraging: Economic Growth and Investing Strategies for the Future

4. Global Economic Growth

The wealth of which nations?

Economies have cycles, too! Those cycles have been more frequent than the structural phases of the equity markets. Including the Great Depression, there have been 14 recessions or economic recessions since 1929. Since 1980, the duration of economic expansion in the United States grew, whereas the incidence of economic contractions declined. Still, the deep global recession of 2008 and the struggles of Japan to generate economic growth after two decades of stagnation are reminders that economic cycles exist and that difficult times can persist for a long time. The magnitude and duration of any period of decline is related to the prior period’s level of excess and the coincident and subsequent ...