Erik Townsend and Patrick Ceresna welcome Lakshman Achuthan to MacroVoices. Erik and Lakshman discuss:
- Are we actually in late cycle dynamics?
- Concept of late cycle: what is the cycle and how does the cycle work
- Business cycle vs. Inflation cycle
- Using cyclical indicators to monitor where we are in the cycle
- Growth rate cycle downturns and recoveries
- Correlation between growth rate downturn and risks of recession
- 3 P’s: Pronounced, Pervasive and Persistent decline in the growth rate
- What the leading indicators show when the cycle is ending
- Length of expansion vs. the severity of recession
- Characteristics of business cycle, credit cycle and inflation cycle
- Changes in productivity growth is needed in order to attain higher trend growth
- Recession serves a purpose in a free market economy
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Lakshman Achuthan is the co-founder and chief operations officer at the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI). He also serves as the managing editor of ECRI-produced forecasting publications. Over nearly 30 years of analyzing business cycles, he has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, FOX Business News, the Washington Post, Forbes and many others. He is also a frequent guest on business and financial news programs on CNBC, Bloomberg, Reuters and MSNBC. Achuthan has been a featured speaker at John Mauldin’s Investor Conference and the Levy Institute’s Minsky Conference. In 2004, he co-authored Beating the Business Cycle: How to Predict and Profit from Turning Points in the Economy, of which Jim Grant said, “Read this jewel of a book and enter your own personal cyclical upswing.”
Achuthan met his mentor, Geoffrey H. Moore, in 1990 and was immediately fascinated by Moore’s unique global approach to analyzing business cycles. After working together for years, with co-founder Anirvan Banerji, the three left Columbia University to start ECRI in 1996.
Achuthan currently serves on the Board of Economists for TIME Magazine, on the Board of Governors for the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, and as a trustee on the boards of several other foundations. He received an undergraduate degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1989 and a graduate degree from Long Island University in 1991. He lives in Manhattan with his family, is an avid hiker and skier, and enjoys reading in his free time.
Follow him on LinkedIn and on Twitter at @businesscycle.
