IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/14529.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Business Cycles in the Euro Area

Author

Listed:
  • Domenico Giannone
  • Michele Lenza
  • Lucrezia Reichlin

Abstract

This paper shows that the EMU has not affected historical characteristics of member countries' business cycles and their cross-correlations. Member countries which had similar levels of GDP per-capita in the seventies have also experienced similar business cycles since then and no significant change associated with the EMU can be detected. For the other countries, volatility has been historically higher and this has not changed in the last ten years. We also find that the aggregate euro area per-capita GDP growth since 1999 has been lower than what could have been predicted on the basis of historical experience and US observed developments. The gap between US and euro area GDP per capita level has been 30% on average since 1970 and there is no sign of catching up or of further widening.

Suggested Citation

  • Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2008. "Business Cycles in the Euro Area," NBER Working Papers 14529, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14529
    Note: EFG IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14529.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patrick Bolton & Xavier Freixas, 2006. "Corporate Finance and the Monetary Transmission Mechanism," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(3), pages 829-870.
    2. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2008. "The Consequences of Mortgage Credit Expansion: Evidence from the 2007 Mortgage Default Crisis," NBER Working Papers 13936, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Frankel, Jeffrey A & Rose, Andrew K, 1998. "The Endogeneity of the Optimum Currency Area Criteria," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(449), pages 1009-1025, July.
    4. Canova, Fabio & Ciccarelli, Matteo & Ortega, Eva, 2007. "Similarities and convergence in G-7 cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(3), pages 850-878, April.
    5. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Dedola, Luca & Leduc, Sylvain, 2008. "High exchange-rate volatility and low pass-through," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 1113-1128, September.
    6. Michael ARTIS & Massimiliano MARCELLINO & Tommaso PROIETTI, 2002. "Dating the Euro Area Business Cycle," Economics Working Papers ECO2002/24, European University Institute.
    7. Canova, Fabio, 1998. "Detrending and business cycle facts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 475-512, May.
    8. Bent E. S�rensen & Oved Yosha, 1998. "International Risk Sharing and European Monetary Unification," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 327, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    9. Peter Hördahl & Oreste Tristani & David Vestin, 2008. "The Yield Curve and Macroeconomic Dynamics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(533), pages 1937-1970, November.
    10. Robin L. Lumsdaine & Eswar S. Prasad, 2003. "Identifying the Common Component of International Economic Fluctuations: A New Approach," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 101-127, January.
    11. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Moore, John, 1997. "Credit Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 211-248, April.
    12. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2008. "Explaining The Great Moderation: It Is Not The Shocks," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(2-3), pages 621-633, 04-05.
    13. Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2005. "Trends and cycles in the Euro Area: how much heterogeneity and should we worry about it?," Macroeconomics 0511016, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Lippi, Marco & Reichlin, Lucrezia & Hallin, Marc & Forni, Mario & Altissimo, Filippo & Cristadoro, Riccardo & Veronese, Giovanni & Bassanetti, Antonio, 2001. "EuroCOIN: A Real Time Coincident Indicator of the Euro Area Business Cycle," CEPR Discussion Papers 3108, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2010. "Business Cycles in the Euro Area," NBER Chapters, in: Europe and the Euro, pages 141-167, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2008. "Summary of \"the consequences of mortgage credit expansion\"," Proceedings 1074, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    17. Carmen M. Reinhart & Graciela L. Kaminsky, 1999. "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 473-500, June.
    18. Bent E. S¯rensen & Oved Yosha, 1996. "International Risk Sharing and European Monetary Unification," Working Papers 1996-30, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    19. Bayoumi, Tamim & Eichengreen, Barry, 1992. "Shocking Aspects of Monetary Unification," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt791143kp, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    20. Luca Benati, 2008. "Investigating Inflation Persistence Across Monetary Regimes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 1005-1060.
    21. Giovanni Dell’ariccia & Deniz Igan & Luc Laeven, 2012. "Credit Booms and Lending Standards: Evidence from the Subprime Mortgage Market," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44, pages 367-384, March.
    22. Ashcraft, Adam B., 2006. "New Evidence on the Lending Channel," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(3), pages 751-775, April.
    23. Leith, Campbell & von Thadden, Leopold, 2008. "Monetary and fiscal policy interactions in a New Keynesian model with capital accumulation and non-Ricardian consumers," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 279-313, May.
    24. Lutz Kilian & Simone Manganelli, 2008. "The Central Banker as a Risk Manager: Estimating the Federal Reserve's Preferences under Greenspan," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(6), pages 1103-1129, September.
    25. Marco Del Negro & Christopher Otrok, 2008. "Dynamic factor models with time-varying parameters: measuring changes in international business cycles," Staff Reports 326, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    26. Hali J. Edison, 2003. "Do indicators of financial crises work? An evaluation of an early warning system," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(1), pages 11-53.
    27. Sorensen, Bent E. & Yosha, Oved, 1998. "International risk sharing and European monetary unification," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 211-238, August.
    28. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2005. "Understanding Changes In International Business Cycle Dynamics," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(5), pages 968-1006, September.
    29. Marta Banbura & Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2010. "Large Bayesian vector auto regressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 71-92.
    30. Graciela Kaminsky & Saul Lizondo & Carmen M. Reinhart, 1998. "Leading Indicators of Currency Crises," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 45(1), pages 1-48, March.
    31. Fagan, Gabriel & Henry, Jérôme & Mestre, Ricardo, 2001. "An area-wide model (AWM) for the euro area," Working Paper Series 42, European Central Bank.
    32. Jean Boivin & Marc P. Giannoni & Benoît Mojon, 2008. "How Has the Euro Changed the Monetary Transmission?," NBER Working Papers 14190, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. Harding, Don & Pagan, Adrian, 2006. "Synchronization of cycles," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 59-79, May.
    34. Giancarlo Corsetti & Luca Dedola & Sylvain Leduc, 2008. "International Risk Sharing and the Transmission of Productivity Shocks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(2), pages 443-473.
    35. Michael Ehrmann & Andreas Worms, 2004. "Bank Networks and Monetary Policy Transmission," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(6), pages 1148-1171, December.
    36. Levine, Paul & McAdam, Peter & Pearlman, Joseph, 2008. "Quantifying and sustaining welfare gains from monetary commitment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 1253-1276, October.
    37. Matteo Iacoviello, 2005. "House Prices, Borrowing Constraints, and Monetary Policy in the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 739-764, June.
    38. Martin Feldstein, 1997. "The Political Economy of the European Economic and Monetary Union: Political Sources of an Economic Liability," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 23-42, Fall.
    39. Artis, Michael J & Zhang, W, 1997. "International Business Cycles and the ERM: Is There a European Business Cycle?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 2(1), pages 1-16, January.
    40. Kishan, Ruby P & Opiela, Timothy P, 2000. "Bank Size, Bank Capital, and the Bank Lending Channel," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(1), pages 121-141, February.
    41. Angeloni,Ignazio & Kashyap,Anil K. & Mojon,Benoît (ed.), 2003. "Monetary Policy Transmission in the Euro Area," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521828642.
    42. J÷Rg D÷Pke & Jonas Dovern & Ulrich Fritsche & Jiri Slacalek, 2008. "Sticky Information Phillips Curves: European Evidence," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(7), pages 1513-1520, October.
    43. Bussiere, Matthieu & Fratzscher, Marcel, 2008. "Low probability, high impact: Policy making and extreme events," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 111-121.
    44. Jean‐Guillaume Sahuc & Frank Smets, 2008. "Differences in Interest Rate Policy at the ECB and the Fed: An Investigation with a Medium‐Scale DSGE Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(2‐3), pages 505-521, March.
    45. Tamim Bayoumi & Barry Eichengreen, 1992. "Shocking Aspects of European Monetary Unification," NBER Working Papers 3949, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    46. Forni, Mario & Reichlin, Lucrezia, 2001. "Federal policies and local economies: Europe and the US," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 109-134, January.
    47. M. Ayhan Kose & Christopher Otrok & Charles H. Whiteman, 2003. "International Business Cycles: World, Region, and Country-Specific Factors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1216-1239, September.
    48. Lucrezia Reichlin, 2005. "The Euro area business cycle: stylized facts and measurement issues," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/10173, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    49. Marvin Goodfriend & Bennett T. McCallum, 2007. "Banking and interest rates in monetary policy analysis: a quantitative exploration," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    50. Elena Loutskina & Philip E. Strahan, 2006. "Securitization and the Declining Impact of Bank Finance on Loan Supply: Evidence from Mortgage Acceptance Rates," NBER Working Papers 11983, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    51. Marcel Fratzscher, 2008. "Oral Interventions Versus Actual Interventions in Fx Markets – An Event‐Study Approach," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 1079-1106, July.
    52. Christophe Croux & Mario Forni & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2001. "A Measure Of Comovement For Economic Variables: Theory And Empirics," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 232-241, May.
    53. Jiminez, G. & Ongena, S. & Saurina, J., 2007. "Hazardous Times for Monetary Policy : What do Twenty-three Million Bank Loans Say about the Effects of Monetary Policy on Credit Risk?," Discussion Paper 2007-75, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    54. Philip Lowe & Claudio Borio, 2002. "Asset prices, financial and monetary stability: exploring the nexus," BIS Working Papers 114, Bank for International Settlements.
    55. Filippo Altissimo & Antonio Bassanetti & Riccardo Cristadoro & Lucrezia Reichlin & Giovanni Veronese, 2001. "The construction of coincident and leading indicators for the euro area business cycler of the euro area business cycle," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 434, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    56. Marta Bańbura, 2008. "Large Bayesian VARs," 2008 Meeting Papers 334, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    57. Mr. Thomas Helbling & Mr. Tamim Bayoumi, 2003. "Are they All in the Same Boat? the 2000-2001 Growth Slowdown and the G-7 Business Cycle Linkages," IMF Working Papers 2003/046, International Monetary Fund.
    58. Michael Artis, 2003. "Is there a European Business Cycle?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1053, CESifo.
    59. Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem & Sorensen, Bent E. & Yosha, Oved, 2001. "Economic integration, industrial specialization, and the asymmetry of macroeconomic fluctuations," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 107-137, October.
    60. Monfort, Alain & Vitale, Giovanni & Rüffer, Rasmus & Renne, Jean-Paul, 2003. "Is Economic Activity in the G7 Synchronized? Common Shocks versus Spillover Effects," CEPR Discussion Papers 4119, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    61. Christoffel, Kai & Kuester, Keith, 2008. "Resuscitating the wage channel in models with unemployment fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 865-887, July.
    62. Claudio E. V. Borio & Philip Lowe, 2004. "Securing sustainable price stability: should credit come back from the wilderness?," BIS Working Papers 157, Bank for International Settlements.
    63. Gambacorta, Leonardo & Mistrulli, Paolo Emilio, 2004. "Does bank capital affect lending behavior?," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 436-457, October.
    64. Filippo Altissimo & Antonio Bassanetti & Riccardo Cristadoro & Mario Forni & Marco Lippi & Lucrezia Reichlin & Giovanni Veronese, 2001. "A real time coincident indicator of the euro area business cycle," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 436, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    65. Mojon, Benoît & Agresti, Anna Maria, 2001. "Some stylised facts on the euro area business cycle," Working Paper Series 95, European Central Bank.
    66. Philip R. Lane, 2006. "The Real Effects of European Monetary Union," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 47-66, Fall.
    67. Chui, Michael & Gai, Prasanna, 2005. "Private Sector Involvement and International Financial Crises: An Analytical Perspective," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199267750.
    68. Ongena, Steven & Peydró, José-Luis & Jiménez, Gabriel & Saurina, Jesús, 2007. "Hazardous Times for Monetary Policy: What Do Twenty-Three Million Bank Loans Say About the Effects of Monetary Policy on Credit," CEPR Discussion Papers 6514, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    69. Ehrmann, Michael & Backé, Peter, 2003. "Monetary policy transmission in the euro area: any changes after EMU?," Working Paper Series 240, European Central Bank.
    70. Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2004. "Euro area and US recessions: 1970-2003," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/6405, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    71. Philip Molyneux & Eleuterio Vallelado (ed.), 2008. "Frontiers of Banks in a Global Economy," Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Banking and Financial Institutions, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-59066-3, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lucia Alessi & Carsten Detken, 2009. "Global liquidity as an early warning indicator for asset price boom/bust cycles," Research Bulletin, European Central Bank, vol. 8, pages 7-9.
    2. David Marqués Ibañez, 2009. "Banks, credit and the transmission mechanism of monetary policy," Research Bulletin, European Central Bank, vol. 8, pages 2-4.
    3. Giannone, Domenico & Reichlin, Lucrezia & Lenza, Michele, 2009. "Business cycles in the euro area," Working Paper Series 1010, European Central Bank.
    4. Jakob De Haan & Robert Inklaar & Richard Jong‐A‐Pin, 2008. "Will Business Cycles In The Euro Area Converge? A Critical Survey Of Empirical Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 234-273, April.
    5. Eduardo Bandrés & María Dolores Gadea-Rivas & Ana Gómez-Loscos, 2017. "Regional business cycles across europe," Occasional Papers 1702, Banco de España.
    6. Eickmeier, Sandra, 2006. "Comovements and heterogeneity in the Comovements and heterogeneity in the dynamic factor model," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2006,31, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    7. Marc-Alexandre Sénégas, 2010. "La théorie des zones monétaires optimales au regard de l'euro : Quels enseignements après dix années d'union économique et monétaire en Europe ?," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 120(2), pages 379-419.
    8. Borio, Claudio & Zhu, Haibin, 2012. "Capital regulation, risk-taking and monetary policy: A missing link in the transmission mechanism?," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 236-251.
    9. Igan, Deniz & Kabundi, Alain & Nadal De Simone, Francisco & Pinheiro, Marcelo & Tamirisa, Natalia, 2011. "Housing, credit, and real activity cycles: Characteristics and comovement," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 210-231, September.
    10. Altunbas, Yener & Gambacorta, Leonardo & Marques-Ibanez, David, 2010. "Bank risk and monetary policy," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 121-129, September.
    11. Alain Kabundi & Francisco Nadal De Simone, 2011. "France in the global economy: a structural approximate dynamic factor model analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 311-342, October.
    12. Ansgar Belke & Clemens Domnick & Daniel Gros, 2017. "Business Cycle Synchronization in the EMU: Core vs. Periphery," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 28(5), pages 863-892, November.
    13. Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2005. "Trends and cycles in the Euro Area: how much heterogeneity and should we worry about it?," Macroeconomics 0511016, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Mattia Guerini & Duc Thi Luu & Mauro Napoletano, 2023. "Synchronization patterns in the European Union," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(18), pages 2038-2059, April.
    15. Zsolt Darvas & György Szapáry, 2008. "Business Cycle Synchronization in the Enlarged EU," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 1-19, February.
    16. Ayhan Kose, M. & Otrok, Christopher & Whiteman, Charles H., 2008. "Understanding the evolution of world business cycles," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 110-130, May.
    17. Sybille Lehwald, 2013. "Has the Euro changed business cycle synchronization? Evidence from the core and the periphery," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 655-684, November.
    18. Zouri, Stéphane, 2020. "Business cycles, bilateral trade and financial integration: Evidence from Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 25-43.
    19. Sumru Altug & Melike Bildirici, 2010. "Business Cycles around the Globe: A Regime Switching Approach," Koç University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum Working Papers 1009, Koc University-TUSIAD Economic Research Forum.
    20. Eickmeier, Sandra, 2005. "Common stationary and non-stationary factors in the euro area analyzed in a large-scale factor model," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2005,02, Deutsche Bundesbank.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C5 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • F2 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business
    • F43 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Economic Growth of Open Economies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14529. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.