Illustrated by this graph from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve,
sometimes one orange line can create a huge debate. The thick
orange line representing the US recovery from the December
2007-June 2009 recession reflects a tepid ascent next to curves
that represent other post-WW II economic recoveries. Still
though, Democrats say the numbers reflect progress while
Republicans call them poor. How can we decide? Looking at
several academic papers, it gets ever more confusing. Some
policy makers and scholars believe that the recovery is typical.
Explaining that it takes a long time to bounce back from a
recession connected to a financial crisis, they say the
trajectory of this recovery is what we should expect.
Disagreeing, other equally auspicious individuals use their data
to prove that financially related deep recessions actually
precede robust economic growth. The disagreement takes us to the
data. Should the US be compared to other culturally and
institutionally different countries or should the data just foc