Page 128 - Morgan Housel - The Psychology of Money_ Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness-Harriman House Limited (2020)
P. 128
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The average time between recessions has grown from about two years in
the late 1800s to five years in the early 20th century to eight years over the
last half-century.
As I write this it looks like we’re going into recession—12 years since the
last recession began in December 2007. That’s the longest gap between
recessions since before the Civil War.
There are plenty of theories on why recessions have become less frequent.
One is that the Fed is better at managing the business cycle, or at least
extending it. Another is that heavy industry is more prone to boom-and-bust
overproduction than the service industries that dominated the last 50 years.
The pessimistic view is that we now have fewer recessions, but when they
occur they are more powerful than before. For our argument it doesn’t
