Saxophone Recession

A nice little piece on the BBC website today looking at the different ways to describe the type of recession an economy may be experiencing. Traditional letters that have been used to mirror a recession have been U, W and L. The bath tub and saxophone are two of the more unusual ways of describing the shape of a recession.

Doug McWilliams, Chief Executive of the Centre for Economics and Business Research, has a more melodic interpretation of current events - comparing it to a saxophone.

“The line describing the progress of gross domestic product goes up, then sharply down, then comes back up sharply initially before levelling off, describing the rough profile of a saxophone,” he wrote.

Worth a read and may be useful during the first few weeks of term when looking at fluctuations in GDP with your students.