CHAPTER VI 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 



These cycles of crops constitute the natural, material current 

 which drags upon its surface the lagging, rhythmically changing 

 values and prices with which the economist is more immediately 

 concerned. 



The principal contribution of this Essay is the dis- 

 covery of the law and cause of Economic Cycles. The 

 rhythm in the activity of economic life, the alternation 

 of buoyant, purposeful expansion with aimless depres- 

 sion, is caused by the rhythm in the yield per acre of 

 the crops; while the rhythm in the production of the 

 crops is, in turn, caused by the rhythm of changing 

 weather which is represented by the cyclical changes in 

 the amount of rainfall. The law of the cycles of rainfall 

 is the law of the cycles of the crops and the law of 

 Economic Cycles. 



We shall recapitulate the main stages by which this 

 conclusion was reached and shall take occasion, as the 

 stages are reviewed, to suggest the care that must 

 be observed in interpreting the statistical generaliza- 

 tions which form the structure of the argument. 



When we begin to think seriously about the cause of 

 Economic Cycles we are greatly impressed by the wide 

 diffusion of these cyclical movements among the peoples 

 of the world, and the inference appears to be inevitable 

 that there must be some physical cause at work to 



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