Roles of Strategic and Innovative Variables in Analyzing and Predicting Recession and Slowdowns: A Study of Selected Countries

This study analyzes the trends and patterns of strategic and innovative macroeconomic variables during recession or slowdown periods of 10 countries – Brazil, the United States, UK, Germany, France, China, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea for the period 1980–2018, which includes major recessions like the 1982 debt crisis, 1991 economic crisis, 1997 Asian Financial crisis, and 2008 Sub-prime crisis. This study devised two models – Logistic Regression and a Range-based Custom-Made Recession-cum-Economy State indicator, based on Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) model parameters. Results for the logistic regression model show that most of the marginal effect values are positive for variables linked with globalization indicating that increase in adverse impact on such variables increases the probability of recession. The custom-made statistical index provides an individual country-wise range, along with a global range for the weighted total of the variables, the weights for which are derived from the DOLS model, which has a 59.66% accuracy in estimating the condition of an economy. The recent worldwide experience indicates that probability of recessions has decreased, and slowdowns have increased over a period. This is evident from the Cumulative Trend of Economic State analysis that indicates that the recession probabilities of countries have decreased 1990 and that of slowdown have become highly volatile.