How Similar Are European Business Cycles?

U. Michael Bergman
Additional contact information
U. Michael Bergman: Institute of Economics, University of Copenhagen

No 04-13, EPRU Working Paper Series from Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics

Abstract: In this paper, we focus on how European economic integration has affected the synchronization and the magnitude of business cycles among participating countries. We measure, based on bandpass filtered data, the characteristics of European business cycles analyzing to what extent they have become more similar over time. We also consider the role of other factors such as differences in fiscal and monetary policy, border effects, and trade intensity. Our main finding is that European business cycles are highly synchronized, although we also find that synchronization was higher during periods with highly flexible exchange rates. In addition we find a positive tradeoff between timing and magnitude such that more synchronization coincides with larger relative magnitude. These results raise concern about the consequences of a common monetary policy within EMU.

Keywords: business cycles; symmetry and co{movement of cycles; magnitude of cycles; economic integration; monetary union (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 F15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2004-03, Revised 2004-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec, nep-ifn and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Downloads: (external link)
http://web.econ.ku.dk/epru/files/wp/wp-04-13.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://web.econ.ku.dk/epru/files/wp/wp-04-13.pdf [301 Moved permanently]--> https://web.econ.ku.dk/epru/files/wp/wp-04-13.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kud:epruwp:04-13

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in EPRU Working Paper Series from Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics �ster Farimagsgade 5, Building 26, DK-1353 Copenhagen K., Denmark. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Hoffmann ().