An Examination of the Most Recent Economic Cycle from an Arid Lands Perspective

On July 17, 2003, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the United States economy had troughed in November 2001 following the peak in March 2001. This makes the 2001 recession one of the shortest in U.S. history being only eight months in length. Whereas business cycles are defined in terms of the overall economies the authors of this paper investigate whether this national recession was evenly shared among the 50 states. In particular we examine the economic performance of arid/semi-arid states with the humid/semi-humid states. Did the arid/semi-arid states economies suffer more, or less than the general U.S. economy or was this truly a “national recession” where states suffered equally. After an extensive review of the literature on economic cycles, the authors analyze the most recent economic performance and conclude that the arid states economic performance differed form the national economy.