Recession & event studies
What changed before and after? Compare an indicator around economic turning points or dates you choose.
These are retrospective comparisons using today’s revised history. Recession dates were identified after the fact. They do not show what investors knew at the time, establish causation, or predict the next cycle.
How to read the comparison
Period zero is the event’s source-level observation. Change subtracts that value; percent change divides by a positive anchor value and subtracts one. These are cumulative changes from the anchor, not year-over-year growth or investment returns. For rates quoted in percent, Change is measured in percentage points.
Daily series use the mean of stored observations in each completed calendar month. Missing trading days are not independently certified. GDP uses quarterly source observations. The current unfinished month or quarter is excluded; unavailable periods stay blank, with no interpolation. Custom dates use their containing month or quarter, which can include observations after the event day.
Recession comparisons use NBER’s separate monthly and quarterly turning points. The peak month ends the expansion; the trough month ends the recession. The catalog covers 12 recessions from 1948 through 2020. NBER chronology ↗ · Verified 2026-10-05.
The aggregate mean and median use only episodes with every requested period present. Individual incomplete paths remain visible. Coverage exclusions, overlapping windows and the small number of historical recessions limit interpretation.