How to Prosper during an Economic Downturn

Strategies and Opportunities for Accounting Firms

James Byrd, CPA, PhD, and Douglas Smith, PhD, CPA, CMA, and Marilyn M. Helms, DBA, CFPIM, CIRM, CSCP, CQM/OE

Tough economic times have occurred periodically throughout history; according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, there have been 10 recognized U.S. recessions that covered approximately nine years in a nearly sixty-year period (1953, 1958, 1960–61, 1969–70, 1973–75, 1980, 1981–82, 1990–91, 2001, and 2007–09). A recession, or even an economic slump, is not an unusual event; for one quarter of the twentieth century, the United states was in an economic downturn.