The measuring of Business Cycles

Towards the end of World War I, a number of Instituites were set up, in Europe and the United States, to monitor business fluctuations with view of predicting their course and remedying their unpleasant consequences.

The story of these Institutes is interlinked with the history of different conceptions not only of measurement, but also of the cycle itself, and involves social and institutional aspects.

C. Dangel-Hagnauer, A. Raybaut, "Elements on French Research Institute on Business Cycles (Sauvy)."

H. Hagemann, " Research Institutes on Business Cycles in the German Language Area in the Interwar Period"

Daniele Besomi will inquire on the Rockefeller Foundation's involvement in the financing of the League of Nations's inquiry in business cycles and of the work, to some extent coordinated by the League, of the various 'business cycle barometers' institutes.

The attempts to monitor and forecast business fluctuations have a forerunner in Clément Juglar's extensive use of statistics and diagrammatic representations of changes in prices and monetary variables as indicators of the various phases of the cycle. M. Dal-Pont and L. Frobert are inquiring in the subject: they are preparing a paper on "Usage des statistiques et détermination de la conjoncture économique chez Clément Juglar"