You will find quarterly data on real GDP, employment, and average labor productivity for the past two recessions. For both cases, the data starts the quarter before the onset of the recession and then ends seven quarters later as that is the last quarter for which there is data for the COVID Recession. Thus, for the Great Recession the data runs from the fourth quarter of 2007 (2007-10-01) through the third quarter of 2009 (2009-07-01) and for the COVID Recession the data runs from the fourth quarter of 2019 (2019-10-01) through the third quarter of 2021 (2021-07-01). The data are provided as indexes since you will be creating figures similar to Figures 11.32 through 11.34, but now to compare behavior across the Great Recession and the COVID Recession.

a. Create a plot that shows the index values for real GDP for both recessions. You can use the numbers provided under Quarters after Start of Recession for the values to report on the horizontal axis. Do the same for the index values for employment and for average labor productivity.

b. Based upon your plots, which recession experienced the deepest decline in real GDP and which recession experienced the quickest recovery back towards its value prior to the start of the recession? Briefly explain your reasoning.

c. Based upon your plots, which recession experienced the deepest decline in employment and which recession experienced the quickest recovery back towards its value prior to the start of the recession? Briefly explain your reasoning. d. Based upon your plots, which recession experienced the deepest decline in average labor productivity and which recession experienced the quickest recovery back towards its value prior to the start of the recession? Briefly explain your reasoning

	Y				N				Y/N			Quarters after Start of Recession
2007-10-01	100			2007-10-01	100			2007-10-01	100			0
2008-01-01	99.4252			2008-01-01	99.55091			2008-01-01	99.87372			1
2008-04-01	99.93846			2008-04-01	98.74228			2008-04-01	101.2114			2
2008-07-01	99.39728			2008-07-01	96.96695			2008-07-01	102.5064			3
2008-10-01	97.24654			2008-10-01	96.14781			2008-10-01	101.1428			4
2009-01-01	96.15468			2009-01-01	95.5306			2009-01-01	100.6533			5
2009-04-01	96.01637			2009-04-01	94.82088			2009-04-01	101.2608			6
2009-07-01	96.36594			2009-07-01	94.97301			2009-07-01	101.4667			7
	Y				N				Y/N
2019-10-01	100			2019-10-01	100			2019-10-01	100
2020-01-01	98.69642			2020-01-01	99.43149			2020-01-01	99.26072
2020-04-01	89.87567			2020-04-01	86.76768			2020-04-01	103.582
2020-07-01	96.65907			2020-07-01	92.2135			2020-07-01	104.821
2020-10-01	97.73708			2020-10-01	94.46567			2020-10-01	103.4631
2021-01-01	99.23626			2021-01-01	94.84621			2021-01-01	104.6286
2021-04-01	100.8645			2021-04-01	95.53583			2021-04-01	105.5777
2021-07-01	101.369			2021-07-01	96.60409			2021-07-01	104.9324