Investigating the Long Cycles of Capitalism With Spectral and Cross-Spectral Analysis

The persistent current phase of negative growth has already triggered the awakening of long wave theories. Although long waves are obvious, even with a simple visual observation of the history of the data, doubts as to their existence are expressed by a variety of different theoretical and empirical approaches. However, the increasing number of statistical methods for long wave examination illustrates very clearly that their confirmation, as well as their periodization, depends both on theoretical fixations and / or the use of different empirical methodologies. The present paper uses Spectral Analysis in order to investigate the importance of the long lasting cycles in the periodicity of European Countries' economic evolution. The correlation and timing differences among them are identified with the help of Cross-Spectral analysis.