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expansion, in economics, an upward trend in the business cycle, characterized by an increase in production and employment, which in turn causes an increase in the incomes and spending of households and businesses. Although not all households and businesses experience increases in income, their greater confidence about the future during an expansion prompts them to make larger purchases and investments.
During an economic expansion, increases in output are mostly the result of increases in the purchases of durable goods by consumers and of machinery and equipment by businesses. Consumer and business confidence fuels the demand for products and services. As demand grows, businesses add to their inventories to ensure that they will be able to keep up with new purchase orders. The decision to increase inventories often has an additional impact on production volume, above and beyond the increase in actual sales.
Whether an expansion is sustainable for a long period of time depends on a number of factors. Among them are the extent and quality of credit provided by banks and other financial intermediaries, the existence of appropriate monetary and fiscal policies to support the upward trend, the total production capacity across industries and the portion of it that has been used, and external factors that could influence energy prices or other components of production.
