"�kerman's dissertation, on Rhythmics of Economic Life, announced his life-long interest in business cycle theory . There was, in his view, a strict synchronization between short and long cycles . �kerman's attempts to formulate a theory would involve incorporating a prescient concern with an endogenous business cycle theory reliant in part upon seasonal cycles which, he argued, were correlated with and could propagate large and longer economic swings . �kerman's " causal association " ( 1931 ) theory is a precedent to very recent work on seasonal cycles . �kerman was also the first to identify the " political business cycle " ( 1947 ), . �kerman also pursued more expansive work In his two monumental volumes on economic theory ( 1939, 1944 ), he attempts a sweeping theory of historical and structural change and how that, in turn, determines specific economic phenomena.