Your views: What's a recession?

No one can really make their mind up as to whether the UK economy is approaching recession or not.

A recession, as economists keep reminding us, is when output falls for two successive quarters.

But economic statistics are one thing. Most people's definition of a real slump is when the bad times start to lap up to their own front door.

In any case, few people are satisfied with the way we and almost every other country measure our success - rises in gross domestic product, or economic output.

Economists would love to come up with some measure of contentment or security, an index that mixes our monetary wealth with factors calculating happiness, creativity or fulfilment.

Trouble is, no one has the foggiest idea of what such an index should comprise.

Leaving aside the numbers favoured by orthodox economists, what are the best ways of testing an economy's health?

Consumption is a crazy way to measure economic activity. I suspect half the economic growth of the last decade has been because of "wasted" increases in consumption on things like petrol and car maintenance - and all to drive to the same jobs we had three years ago!

Some composite index including environmental and social indicators is essential if we are to ever get out of the "GDP growth is ipso facto good" mindset.

Peter Rickwood, Australia

You are absolutely right that the current measures are next to useless; for one thing, growth in proportion to the current size of the economy cannot go on for much longer.

The signs of strain are everywhere, from global pollution to deforestation to dwindling energy resources. The rising tide of migration problems such as this month's refugee crisis at Christmas Island must be regarded in light of the ever-widening gap between rich and poor.

We need to focus on quality rather than standard of living, so economists may find themselves out of their depth.

Quality of life is more about friends, community and a sense of belonging rather than having enough money to purchase and consume your way to happiness.

Neil Gall, Scotland

The world economic indicators that measures the soundness of the economy clearly indicates that we will have recession. The question we should ask is not whether we are heading for one but should concentrate on how to overcome this disaster.

I am hopeful that the crisis will be minor.

Shabbir, Canada

Ask people if they consider themselves better off than their parents were.

Ask people if they can buy more now than they could ten years ago.

Ask people if they could live without debt.

If the answer to the first two questions is yes, and the answer to the last question is no, then we are in real trouble, recession or no recession.

Alun Tye, Canada

The figures are distorted by the "rich getting richer" versus the "poor getting poorer" factors.

I think the answer is in two parts, the rich (or rich countries, or rich corporations) ARE getting richer and the poor (all categories) ARE getting poorer.

Until debt, feudality, possessiveness and political envy are properly addressed to the benefit of all, then we are, or will soon be, in a massive recession.

Ross K MacNeil, England

Various indicators react at different times to worsening economic conditions (and at different times in different market zones). Some are leading (the stockmarket) and some are trailing (property prices), so it would be reasonable to expect consumer-type indicators to lag.

Thus when consumer indices start to stutter this could indicate the beginning of the end of recession and such signs could lead to revitalisation of stock markets.

Unfortunately if this is the case then there is still some way to go before the recession is played out.

Ken Fawell, Norway

I think gambling goes hand in hand with a recession as people are more prepared to venture small amounts to get bigger returns - it will be interesting to see how Bingo and the Tote shops perform over the next 18 months.

Chris Johns, UK

I've noticed that the standard of second-hand goods (for example in charity shops) varies much more dramatically from place to place than the standard of new ones does.

If the value of donations to these shops (rather than sales from them!) could be measured, it might be a good indicator of how confident people are about their prosperity, and of how happy they are to give to other people.

Candida Spillard, UK

Isn't the question of whether we are in recession or not, linked to the use of the word itself and the magnitude we award it?

Are we in recession when our economy shows a continued slow down over a specific period... or perhaps we are in recession when our current recession is considered to be worse than our last recession?

Perhaps the importance we attach to the word digs a psychological pit? Once we have dug it, named it and resigned ourselves to climbing in, then it becomes so much harder for us to climb out again.

Do we actually need something we can call a recession every now and again, so we can indulge ourselves in some deep rooted cyclical instinct?

Victor M, UK