Idiosyncrasy of Business Cycles Across EU Countries

This paper analyses the underlying dynamics of business cycles in the EU-15. Existing literature mainly focuses n the comovement of expansion and contraction phases, while this paper seeks to test the idiosyncrasy of business cycles by studying growth pattern and deepness of industrial production. Hypotheses are tested using formal statistical methods while much existing literature in this field rely on judgements of correlation coefficients. The results obtained here does not give much rise to concern about the possibility of the ECB to choose an appropriate timing and magnitude of changes in monetary policy in order to satisfy the economic development in its member countries.