A soft landing in the business cycle is the process of an economy shifting from growth to slow-growth to potentially flat, as it approaches but avoids a recession.
The term was adapted to economics from its origins in the early days of flight, when it historically was the method of the landing of hot air balloons, by gradually reducing their buoyancy.
In modern times, the most notable, and possibly the only true soft landing in the most recent 16 business cycles occurred in the soft landing of 1994, engineered by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan through fine tuning of interest rates and the money supply.
For example, a contemporary newspaper headline read "Soft landing forecast for house prices as rate hikes stem growth".
[4] One of the main goals of the Joe Biden administration was to achieve a soft landing in order to avoid a recession.