A hard landing in the business cycle

Business cycle

The term business cycle refers to economy-wide fluctuations in production or economic activity over several months or years...

 is an economy rapidly shifting from growth to slow-growth to flat as it approaches a recession

Recession

In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction, a general slowdown in economic activity. During recessions, many macroeconomic indicators vary in a similar way...

, usually caused by government attempts to slow down inflation

Inflation

In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...

. It is distinguished from a soft landing, in which an economy's growth rate slows enough to control inflation, but remains high enough to avoid recession.
The criteria for distinguishing between a hard and soft landing are numerous and subjective.
In the United States, modern recessions and hard and soft landings follow from Federal Reserve tightening cycles, in which the Federal funds rate

Federal funds rate

In the United States, the federal funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions actively trade balances held at the Federal Reserve, called federal funds, with each other, usually overnight, on an uncollateralized basis. Institutions with surplus balances in their accounts lend...

is increased over several consecutive moves.