NBER based Recession Indicators for the United States from the Peak through the Period preceding the Trough

This time series is an interpretation of US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions data provided by The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) at http://www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html. Our time series is composed of dummy variables that represent periods of expansion and recession. The NBER identifies months and quarters of turning points without designating a date within the period that turning points occurred. The dummy variable adopts an arbitrary convention that the turning point occurred at a specific date within the period. The arbitrary convention does not reflect any judgment on this issue by the NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee. A value of 1 is a recessionary period, while a value of 0 is an expansionary period. For this time series, the recession begins the first day of the period of the peak and ends on the last day of the period before the trough. For more options on recession shading, see the notes and links below. The recession shading data that we pr