uniformity in international business cycles continued after World War II, with the United States experiencing more and deeper recessions than its European counterparts. Canada and Japan shared downturns in their economies often at the same time as the United States, although the downturns were not as pronounced. Given the close trading relationships between these two countries and the United States, it might be expected that a downturn in one trading partner's fortunes would affect the others, as well ((Dauten & Valentine, 1968, p. 281).
Even the business cycle concept with regard to the United States is not considered an all-pervasive event. In some studies, time series do not have regular cyclical movements while others were found to reach their peak every month. During a period of expansion, not all time series components expand; during a recessionary period, not all time series components contract. For example, the results of the operation of some companies run counter to the main stream of profits or losses. During the depression of the 1930s, 26 percent of the corporations in one group analyzed by the National Bureau of Economic Research had rising profits (Dauten & Valentine, 1968, p. 283).
Despite the observations that business cycles are not universal and do not occur with uniformity throughout a single economy, let alone the international market, they are convenient measures of economic activity which remain popular because of their simplicity (Ascher, 1978, p. 60).
The use and prevalence of business cycles has given rise to the practice of economic forecasting, which attempts to predict the business cycles and significant economic events. However, as various models are implemented and executed, they are sometimes abandoned if they fail to predict an event which has a strong effect on the economy. These errors can be dramatic. For example, the Harvard ABC curve, which was a precursor of today's leading indic...