A stochastic model of industrial fluctuations: An international comparison

This paper presents a stochastic model of production fluctuations. It compares the distributions of observed duration times for expansionary and contractionary phases with those which would be expected if production fluctuations were generated by a random process. From an analysis of the post World War II production time series of seven developed countries, it was concluded that the only ‘cycles’ in industrial activity are ‘Monte Carlo cycles’.