And many of the associates who have been laid off at large law firms are too young to have experienced that earlier downturn.

Mr. Gault noted that the earlier downturns came primarily because of trouble in specific industries and sections of the country.

Five years ago, in an earlier downturn, industry cutbacks set off a public debate about the health of the book business, but since then publishers' output has steadily grown back.

With the labor market tighter than it was at the end of earlier downturns, production workers - the majority of the work force - continue to get annual raises of about 3 percent.

More importantly They were also recruiting persons whom they had been obliged to make redundant in the face of earlier downturns and who were fully conversant with their own particular operations.

The companies then decreased their production sharply, sold some of their bulging inventories and are now in better shape than they were at a similar point in earlier downturns, according to the consensus.

This month brings the seventh anniversary of the economic expansion that began after the 1982 recession, an unusually long period of prosperity that nevertheless was nearly interrupted by two earlier downturns, in 1984 and 1986.

Traders said the early downturn in bond prices was followed by the Government's report on retail sales in February, which showed a gain of 1.5 percent, after the data for January were revised to show a drop of 1.6 percent.

The pain and dislocation of the earlier downturns eventually led to the emergence of new, highly productive computer-driven manufacturing in the Midwest, and to a high-tech resurgence in places like Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Mr. Huth said Long Island held relatively steady because other parts of the nation suffered heavy losses in manufacturing jobs, the kinds of jobs Long Island lost in the earlier downturn of the 1980's and early 1990's.

Richmond, a city whose diverse economy has cushioned the pain of earlier downturns, has just recorded the worst job loss of any metropolitan area in the state - a 1.7 percent drop between September 1991 and September 1992, more than triple the loss in the state as a whole.

Yet Americans may be wise to restrain hopes that Mr. Hussein's capture will generate an early downturn in the insurgency that has taken the lives of more than 190 American soldiers since May 1, the day Mr. Bush proclaimed an end to major combat operations.