episodes. LICs were able to continue growing during the most recent global recession whereas their per capita growth had plummeted in the previous episodes.

Global expansions. The duration of the global expansions varied, with a minimum of six years (following the 1975 recession) and a maximum of 17 years (following the 1991 recession). The latest global expansion registered average per capita growth comparable with that of previous episodes. The post-2009 expansion was the weakest of the four in advanced economies, as many of them struggled to overcome the legacies of the global financial crisis. Among the EMDEs, the recovery of per capita output growth has been exceptionally robust, despite a gradual slowdown after 2012.

Policies. Monetary and fiscal policies often became expansionary going into global recessions, and they typically supported the ensuing global recoveries. Following the 2009 global recession, monetary policy remained highly accommodative for most of the 2010s, with advanced economy central banks introducing a wide range of unconventional measures to ease credit. However, after the initial implementation of large, coordinated, fiscal stimulus programs during 2008-09, advanced economies withdrew fiscal support, out of concerns for the growth of public debt, and government expenditures fell after 2010. By contrast, EMDEs have generally employed expansionary fiscal and monetary policies during the current expansion, while adjusting the settings of their monetary policy instruments in response to cyclical conditions.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the database and methodology. This is followed by a discussion of the identification of the turning points of the global business cycle and a summary of the main events associated with each global recession. Section 4 documents the main features of global recessions, recoveries and expansions. The last section concludes with a discussion of results and future research directions.

# 2. Identification of Turning Points of the Global Business Cycle

# 2.1. Database

Multiple data sources are employed to construct world GDP growth at annual and quarterly frequencies over a long period. The annual GDP series covers 180 countries— 36 advanced economies and 144 EMDEs—over the period 1950-2019, though the country sample size varies by year.<sup>4</sup> The quarterly series covers 106 countries over the period 1960:1-2019:3.<sup>5</sup> Appendix 1 presents the list of countries used to compute global growth. In addition to data on GDP growth, a wide range of measures of global economic and financial activity are employed.<sup>6</sup> Indicators of economic activity include trade, industrial

> 4 Data for 2019 are estimates. Annual growth forecasts for 2020 are included in the database. All estimates and forecasts are from the World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects report published in January 2020, which covers 180 countries (World Bank 2020).

> 5 The quarterly data collected begin in 1950:1, but data availability is quite limited during the 1950s, so data prior to 1960 were excluded.

> 6 For these series, estimates are also used for 2019. Whenever data series at higher frequencies (e.g., monthly or quarterly) are available, they are used to compute 2019 series.

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