PROSPERITY: A period of sustained growth that often lasts for a decade or two. A prosperity usually includes several separate business cycles, each with relative mild recessions and very vigorous, healthy expansions. The United States enjoyed prosperity from the late-1940s into the mid-1960s, a period that many look fondly on as our "golden age." The prosperity of this period, as is often the case, was the direct aftermath of a severe depression. In particular, the restructuring needed to achieve a period of extended prosperity was a hallmark of the Great Depression of the 1930s. See also | business cycles | expansion | contraction | recession | depression | institution |
