page_title: Recession shapes
section_title: W-shaped recession
hierarchical_section_title: Recession shapes / W-shaped recession
caption_attribution_description: English: A graph of the Early 1980s recession in the United States. Blue line is Percent Change From Preceding Period in Real Gross Domestic Product (annualized; seasonally adjusted) Red line is Average GDP growth 1947–2009 Data is from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
context_page_description: Recession shapes are used by economists to describe different types of recessions. There is no specific academic theory or classification system for recession shapes; rather the terminology is used as an informal shorthand to characterize recessions and their recoveries.
  The most commonly used terms are V-shaped, U-shaped, W-shaped, and L-shaped recessions. The shapes take their names from the approximate shape economic data make in graphs during recessions. The letters can also be applied referring to the recoveries.
context_section_description: In a W-shaped recession, (also known as a double-dip recession), the economy falls into recession, recovers with a short period of growth, then falls back into recession before finally recovering, giving a "down up down up" pattern resembling the letter W.
  The early 1980s recession in the United States is cited as an example of a W-shaped recession. The National Bureau of Economic Research considers two recessions to have occurred in the early 1980s. The economy fell into recession from January 1980 to July 1980, shrinking at an 8 percent annual rate from April to June 1980.  The economy then entered a quick period of growth, and in the first three months of 1981 grew at an 8.4 percent annual rate.  As the Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker raised interest rates to fight inflation, the economy dipped back into recession (hence, the "double dip") from July 1981 to November 1982.  The economy then entered a period of mostly robust growth for the rest of the decade.
  The European debt crisis in the early-2010s is a more recent example of a W-shaped recession. A combination of government austerity, falling business investment, rising interest rates, global economic weakness, high energy prices, and weak consumer spending after the Great Recession of 2008-2009 tipped many Eurozone countries into a second recession from 2011 to 2013. Countries affected included Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland, Germany and Cyprus. Greece, while part of the Eurozone, saw continuous economic contraction from 2007 to 2015, and thus does not fit the definition of a W-shaped recession, but rather an L-shaped recession. The United Kingdom is not a member of the Eurozone, but was a member of the European Union until 2020, and suffered a minor W-shaped recession when GDP contracted in Q4 2011 and Q1 2012.
caption: The early 1980s recession in the United States is sometimes given as an example of a W-shaped recession.
    Percent Change From Preceding Period in Real Gross Domestic Product (annualized; seasonally adjusted);   Average GDP growth 1947–2009
  Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis
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