The synchronization of business cycles across the European Community

The recent adoption of the Delors Report brings into question the extent of the EC integration and the costs to individual countries of continued integration. In this paper we address this question by comparing EC countries to non-EC countries, specifically comparing the extent to which domestic policies are coordinated. We find a strong coordination between EC countries as compared to non-EC countries. However, Italy shows up as a persistent outlier in the EC, requiring a reformulation of domestic policy goals if continued integration is desired. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1992