Thank you!...

• [Please access the website of the NBER, and focus on the business cycle material (https://www.nber.org/research/business-cycle-dating).]
• Assume that you work for BMO Harris Bank. You have discussed the current economy over a burger at lunch with your boss (properly distanced, of course) when she learns that you are taking a course in applied macroeconomics. She tells you that she has always been curious about how the dates of recessions are determined. Lucky you.
• She asks you to send her an interoffice memo that explains in clear language the methods used by the Business Cycle Dating Committee to set the dates and what data are tracked to determine the timing of business cycle peaks and troughs. (This is the format I want you to use, please - a memo format; and be as formal or informal as you would in an actual memo to your actual boss.)
• Use as your sources in preparing this memo the following from the NBER website: the statement on the determinants of the dates; the tab on frequently asked questions; and the memos announcing the peak and the trough of the 2007-09 recession or even the very short pandemic recession.
• Part of your job in this memo is to determine what is important to tell her and what questions about the process need to be answered and what are those answers are. An example or two from the memos might help illustrate exactly how the NBER does its work.
• In closing let your boss know whether knowing the timing of the cycle will be as important to your banking firm as it would be for a company such as Navistar that makes trucks and busses or a non-durables producer such as McDonald's.

*THE EXPLANATION SHOULD TO BE 1.5 TO 2 PAGES MINIMUM.