“…whether the likelihood of an expansion or contraction ending is dependent on its age -has gained special interest in the last two decades, due to an increase in the average duration of expansions and a decrease in the duration of contractions after World War II (WWII). Some studies have been successful in …nding evidence of positive duration dependence for expansions or contractions (or both), in particular, for the United States (Sichel (1991), Diebold et al (1993), Durland and McCurdy (1994), Kim and Nelson (1998), Zuehlke (2003), Lam(2004), Davig (2007), and Layton and Smith (2007) and Zhou and Rigdon (2008)), France, Germany and United Kingdom , Australia (DiVenuto and Layton, 2005), Japan (Iiboshi, 2007), Switzerland (Perruchoud, 2008) and a panel of thirteen industrial countries (Castro, 2010).…”