engleski

Business cycles synchronization within the EU countries: the spectral analysis

The nature of the business cycle is one of the widely discussed topics in economic science. The very existence of business cycles is quite controversial. When we add the problem of economic performance to the issue of synchronization between different sets of countries, we come to the subject of our study. In this paper, we deal with the existence as well as the synchronization of business cycles. The synchronization is studied using the spectral analysis. The spectral analysis explores the cyclical patterns of data, and its main purpose is to decompose original series into an infinite sum of periodic functions, each of which has a different frequency. The advantage and uniqueness of spectral analysis are that it enables the identification and characterization of nonlinear trends and the dominant cycle, including perennial and seasonal components which characterize each time series. The aim of this paper is to determine the existence of the business cycle and evaluate the synchronization process within the EU member states. By studying the data on the gross domestic product and related macroeconomic variables for the EU countries, we offer some conclusions on the nature of business cycle synchronization, cyclical regularities, and macroeconomic interdependence.

advanced time series analysis, economic cycles, spectral analysis, synchronization, EU

This work has been fully supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project number 9481 Modelling Economic Growth - Advanced Sequencing and Forecasting Algorithm. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Croatian Science Foundation.