W-shaped recovery

A term used to describe the contour of economic measures on a chart that depicts a "double dip" economic recession and recovery characterized by a back to back decline and rise in economic activity. Such recoveries tend to occur during periods of volatile economic activity such as wide fluctuations in interest rates or inflation. The period of the early 1980's was thought to be a W-shaped recovery when, after a brief climb out of the 1981 recession, the Federal Reserve increased interest rates to curb high inflation which triggered another economic downturn.