Old series, new signals. The economic cycle in light of wavelet analysis

The economic cycle is a subject of recurring debate in the specialized bibliography. Both from the conceptual point of view and its empirical recognition, there is no consensus regarding the causes and concrete forms of this characteristic of the economy. In particular, the statements regarding the existence of a long wave, proposed by different authors of the early twentieth century, are a source of debate. In this work we propose an empirical review of series traditionally used in economic analysis, such as the product, wages, and gold, for the United States and the United Kingdom, from the 18th century to the present, using a technique originally developed in the area of signal analysis. The objective is to seek new evidence regarding the presence of a well-defined cycle in long periods of economic history. For this, we use Wavelets analysis in search of low-frequency signals, or long periods. The results show favor able evidence to the existence of three distinct cycles, one of which would be of amplitude around 50 years.