With the national economy in recession, concern about the sensitivity of local economic activity to national economic cycles has intensified. Jurisdictions facing high unemployment rates have searched for ways to insulate their labor markets and public sector budgets from the impact of national fluctuations in economic activity. The long-run consequences for local economies of steeper and more frequent cyclical troughs remains uncertain.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of national economic cycles on the economies of metropolitan areas. The analysis examines the response of all metropolitan areas in the country to the two business cycles which occurred between 1969 and 1980, and compares the differential effect of these cycles on the central and suburban portions of metropolitan areas. Special attention is devoted to sectors in the economy which are significant because of their consistent pattern of intensifying or attenuating income fluctuations during the business cycle.

This report is part of the collection of scanned historical documents available to the public.