Cyclicity
Topic: Economic Data: Census, NSS, Surveys and Statistical Tools · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 4 "Presentation of Data"; Class 11, Ch 8 "Use of Statistical Tools"
Meaning
Cyclicity is a repeating up-and-down pattern in time-series data whose period is more than one year. In economics, it mainly shows up as business cycles: boom, slowdown, recession and recovery, spread over several years. Separating cyclicity from the long-run trend and from within-year patterns helps us judge where the economy stands.
Example
Output, jobs and investment expand for some years in a boom and then fall back in a downturn. The whole cycle takes several years.
Don't confuse with
- Seasonality: seasonality repeats within a year, such as kharif and rabi arrivals or festive demand. Cyclicity takes longer than a year.
- Irregular movements: these are one-off shocks that do not repeat, such as COVID in 2020-21.
Related concepts
- Time series
- Trend
- Seasonality
- Compound annual growth rate
- Leading indicators
- Purchasing Managers' Index