A chronology of cycles in real economic activity for Norway, 1867–1914

Abstract

Business cycles, defined as “recurrent sequences of persistent and pervasive expansions and contractions in economic activities”¹, have been a distinctive feature of the experience of capitalist countries as far back as our historical records on aggregate economic activity go. Indeed, Schumpeter maintained that “[a]nalyzing business cycles means neither more nor less than analyzing the economic process of the capitalist era … Cycles are not, like tonsils, separable things that might be treated by themselves, but are, like the beat of the heart, of the essence of the organism that displays them”.²