On some issues concerning definition of an economic recession

In the article it is shown that current definitions of economic recessions are unsatisfactory. NBER definition of an economic recession is only qualitative, so it does not enable identifying recession unequivocally. Another often used ‘technical definition’ of a recession takes into account only quarter-to-quarter changes in real GDP without considering changes in population, so in some cases economy can be in recession while real GDP per capita is actually increasing, and vice versa. Hence, the aim of the article is to propose new quantitative definition of an economic recession based both on economic and population growth or decline respectively. The use of the proposed definition is illustrated on examples of recent economic development in selected countries of the European Union