From paragraph 2 of the wikipedia article: "Although the definition of a recession varies between different countries and scholars, two consecutive quarters of

From paragraph 2 of the wikipedia article: "Although the definition of a recession varies between different countries and scholars, two consecutive quarters of decline in a country's real gross domestic product is commonly used as a practical definition of a recession" As for locking the page, this is a common (and prudent) measure whenever a page suddenly becomes "hot" politically.