Identifying International Business Cycles in Disaggregate Data: Germany, France and Great Britain

This article analyzes international business cycles in Europe 1862-1913 using disaggregated data and Dynamic Factor Analysis. In comparison with estimates of real national product there is more evidence for international business cycles in disaggregated data of Germany, France and Great Britain before World War I. This is because data used to construct historical national accounts are often not sufficient to date business cycles, and especially because little is known about general price fluctuations. Thus, national products in current prices show higher degrees of international correlation than deflated ones although price indices themselves are not very well correlated across countries.