Comparing recessions.

Chris Farrell : responding to Brian

I don't want to get into a back-and-forth on this, but since there is now a link to the Angry Bear blog and its charge of "intellectual dishonesy" over the recession/employment chart (which I still find intriguing)... a couple of things:

First and foremost, I've worked over the years with economists at the Minneapolis Fed. They have always been intellectually engaging, curious, and smart. They're willing to talk and debate a wide range of economic issues. Their research is good. You don't like the chart, fine. Pointing out a different way to way to chart recessions and unemployment, good. But the accusation of "intellectual dishonesty" is deeply wrong. Why make it?
.
Also, here's the response professor Alex Tabarrok posted in the comment section on Angry Bear.

"Spencer I have not misrepresented the data you have misunderstood what the Fed is doing. I explained exactly what is going on in the comments to my post. Here it is:

"The Fed Excel file is easily misunderstood.

To understand what is going on note that mildest, median and harshest are not obvious categories since a recession takes place over many quarters. Is a recession that was mildest in the 4th quarter but harshest in the 9th quarter the mildest recession on record or the harshest?

Thus what the Fed is doing is looking at the mildest, median, and harshest recession in the quarter we are now with respect to the current recession. Thus the recession with the harshest 12th quarter period was the 1948 recession and that is what is plotted and the mildest at this quarter was the 1973 recession. When we come to the next quarter, quarter 13, the harshest is again the 1948 recession but the mildest, by a slight nose, will be the 1980 recession. Thus next quarter when the Fed updates the entire curve for the mildest recession will change.

This is not obviously the wrong thing to do but it's more complicated than I understood at first glance."

The Fed file was easy to misunderstand. I do believe, however, that you owe the Fed and me a retraction and an apology. "

I agree.