The existence of sharp long swings in economic growth since 1950 has shown the inadequacies of models of growth and cycles developed in the 1950s and 1960s. The failure of existing economic paradigms to provide an adequate explanation for the pattern of economic growth since the early 1970s has given rise to a renewed interest in long-term economic growth fluctuations. The Kondratieff wave and the Kuznets swing are two such long cycle ideas.

The Kondratieff wave is a cycle of prices and output with an approximate periodicity of fifty to sixty years. The idea has seen a revival in recent years because the postwar growth phases fall within the expected periodicity of twenty-five to thirty-year ‘upswings’ and ‘downswings’. The Kondratieff wave perspective needs to be studied over a long time period if it is to be regarded as of any relevance to understanding recent economic trends. One question that this book seeks to answer is whether the postwar swings are unique episodes or representative of previous experiences.

The Kuznets swing refers to a variation in economic growth that is longer than the trade cycle but shorter than the Kondratieff wave. The swings observed are variations either in levels or in rates of growth, depending upon the variables being analysed. The actual length of the swings found varies with different authors, but something between fourteen to twenty-two years is representative. Kuznets swings have generally been viewed as a pre-1913 phenomenon.