Today ECRI is announcing new business cycle peak dates for Italy (Apr. 2011) and Japan (May 2012).

Click here for the complete international business cycle chronology.

Business cycles – alternating periods of recession and recovery – are part and parcel of all free-market economies. Before there was a committee to determine U.S. business cycle dates, ECRI co-founder Geoffrey H. Moore decided all those dates on the NBER’s behalf from 1949 to 1978, and then served as the committee’s senior member until he passed away in 2000. Using the same approach, ECRI has long determined recession start and end dates for 20 other countries.