ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses a broad review of the relevant literature on business cycles, with a view to attempting to highlight weaknesses of existing theories with a view to developing an alternative approach. It provides an alternative conception of the cycle and method for its identification. The conception of the generic cycle will be developed on the basis of a critique of various implicit or explicit conceptualisations of cycles found in the mainstream literature. The book aims to identify global cycles as well as cycles pertaining to sub-global groupings of countries. It seeks to determine the major country drivers of the global cycles and the extent to which the groupings of developing country cycles are driven by forces driving global cycles. The book shows that the key drivers of the global cycles are not the large economies per se but the large manufacturing economies.
