Ten months.
That's the average duration of U.S. recessions in the post-World War II period. Yesterday we found out, officially, that the current recession began in December 2007. So we are nearly a year into this one.
The two longest post-war recessions lasted 16 months (1973 and 1981).
But with the aftermath of the largest credit bubble in history, this recession could set a new post-war record for duration.
If we reach back to the post-World War I period, the average goes up to 13 months. The large outlier here is the 1929 recession which lasted 43 months. (Excluding that data point drops the average to 11 months).
Assuming we avoid a 1929-esque recession (not a sure thing) we're probably looking at no more than a two-year contraction. If that's the case, it's almost half over.
Source:
National Bureau of Economic Research. Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions
http://www.nber.org/cycles.html
© 2008 Michael Cale
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