Here is a thought experiment. What if the US economy entered a recession next month? Would it be too early for a recession? How would it compare to previous recessions? And how would we explain the reasons for a recession occurring now?
Let’s start counting months using the two phases of the business cycle as defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) business cycle dating committee. The current expansion started in June 2009, which makes it already 62 months. Compared to all the previous post-WWII expansions it is already above average (60.5 months).