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Kuznets Swings

The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics
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Abstract

This refers to a variation in economic growth that is longer than the trade cycle but shorter than the Kondratieff cycle. The swings observed are variations either in levels or in rates of growth, depending upon the variable being analysed. The actual length of the swings found varies with different authors. Kuznets (1958), Abramovitz (1959) and Lewis and O’Leary (1955) found mean swings of 22, 14 and 19 years respectively. The different lengths found are the result of the different smoothing and trend elimination techniques employed (Bird et al. 1965), but the existence of the swings is not critically dependent on those techniques used to analyse them since most series exhibit swings in the original data.

This chapter was originally published in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, 1st edition, 1987. Edited by John Eatwell, Murray Milgate and Peter Newman

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Bibliography

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Solomou, S.N. (1987). Kuznets Swings. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_1169-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_1169-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95121-5

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Kuznets Swings
    Published:
    17 March 2017

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_1169-2

  2. Original

    Kuznets Swings
    Published:
    03 November 2016

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_1169-1