Have UK and Eurozone Business Cycles Become More Correlated?

2002 ◽  
Vol 182 ◽  
pp. 58-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Massmann ◽  
James Mitchell

Recent estimates suggest that the UK business cycle is closer to the Eurozone business cycle than it was in the early 1990s. This paper investigates whether this phenomenon has been accompanied by increased correlation between UK and Eurozone business cycles. Considering a range of alternative measures of the business cycle we find, using 40 years of monthly industrial production data, no clear evidence for a sustained increase in correlation between UK and Eurozone business cycles. Instead, in the 1990s, the correlation between UK and Eurozone business cycles has been volatile relative to historical levels. It is only recently, i.e. since 1997, that the UK has become more correlated with the Eurozone, although the level of correlation is lower than against non-Eurozone countries. Importantly, the strength of these relationships is sensitive to how the business cycle is measured. Care should therefore be exercised when using business cycles estimates to test the relationship between UK and Eurozone business cycles.

2003 ◽  
Vol 183 ◽  
pp. 90-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Massmann ◽  
James Mitchell ◽  
Martin Weale

The business cycle has an importance in the popular debate which can tend to run ahead of the problems in measuring it. This paper provides a survey of the main statistical techniques that are used to measure the cycle. An application to the UK illustrates that the choice of what measure, or measures, to use is more than a dry academic issue. Inference about the business cycle is potentially sensitive to measurement. Fortunately, however, there is an element of consensus.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Pablo Mejía-Reyes

This paper aims to document expansions and recessions characteristics for 17 states of Mexico over the period 1993-2006 by using a classical business cycle approach. We use the manufacturing production index for each state as the business cycle indicator since it is the only output measure available on a monthly basis. According to this approach, we analyse asymmetries in mean, volatility and duration as well as synchronisation over the business cycle regimes (expansions and recessions) for each case. Our results indicate that recessions are less persistent and more volatile (in general) than expansions in most Mexican states; yet, there is no clear cut evidence on mean asymmetries. In turn, there seems to be strong links between the business cycle regimes within the Northern and Central regions of the country and between states with similar industrialisation patterns, although it is difficult to claim that a national business cycle exists.


Author(s):  
George Saridakis ◽  
Priscila Ferreira ◽  
Anne‐Marie Mohammed ◽  
Susan Marlow

2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-478
Author(s):  
James Bernstein ◽  
Leroi Raputsoana ◽  
Eric Schaling

This study assesses the behaviour of credit extension over the business cycle in South Africa for the period 2000 to 2012. This is motivated by the proposal of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision to look at credit extension over the business cycle as a reference guide for implementing countercyclical capital buffers for financial institutions. The study finds that credit extension in South increases during the trough phase, while the relationship between credit extension and the business cycle becomes insignificant during the peak phase. The study also finds that credit extension decreases during the expansion phase, while it increases during the contraction phase. Thus we do not find any evidence of procyclical behaviour of credit extension in South Africa, and the latter should therefore be used with caution and not as a mechanical rule based common reference guide for countercyclical capital buffers for financial institutions. 


Author(s):  
Kyle Bagwell ◽  
Robert W. Staiger

Abstract Empirical studies have repeatedly documented the countercyclical nature of trade barriers. In this paper, we propose a simple theoretical framework that is consistent with this and other empirical regularities in the relationship between protection and the business cycle. Focusing on self-enforcing trade agreements, we find theoretical support for countercyclical movements in protection levels. The fast growth in trade volume that is associated with a boom phase facilitates the maintenance of more liberal trade policies than can be sustained during a recession phase in which growth is slow. We also find that acyclic increases in the level of trade volume give rise to protection, implying that whether rising imports are met with greater liberalization or increased protection depends on whether they are part of a cyclic upward trend in trade volume or an acyclic increase in import levels.


2013 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 615-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sangjun Jeong ◽  
Hueechae Jung

Credit procyclicality has recently been the focus of considerable attention, but what fuels the often excessive credit growth is rarely questioned. We investigate the relationship between the composition of banks? liabilities and their credit procyclicality. After examining the macroeconomic context where banks rely increasingly on wholesale funding (WSF), we estimate the effect of WSF on the banks? credit growth using quarterly panel data for the commercial banks of Korea from 2000 to 2011. We find that a higher sensitivity of banks? WSF to the business cycle leads to an excessive response of credit growth to the business cycle, even with a low share of WSF on bank liabilities. On the other hand, we find that overseas WSF has a more marked effect on credit procyclicality, which may additionally exacerbate the financial fragility of export-led emerging economies.


Author(s):  
Paul Turner ◽  
Justine Wood

This paper reconsiders the contribution of Henry Ludwell Moore to dynamic economics through the use of harmonic analysis. We show that Moore’s analysis is innovative in its use of the Fourier transformation for the identification of cycles with different periodicities. This enables Moore to identify cycles of longer length with more precision than would be the case for the standard methodology. We are able to replicate the main features of his results and confirm the existence of a rainfall cycle with a periodicity similar to that of the business cycle (eight years). However, we find that the evidence for a longer (thirty-three-year) rainfall cycle is weaker than Moore indicates. We also argue that a central theme of Moore’s analysis—the relationship among rainfall, agricultural productivity, and the business cycle—marks an early precursor of the “real business cycle” approach. George Stigler’s (1962) dismissal of Moore’s work on cycles as “a complete failure” is therefore, in our opinion, unfair. Instead, we argue that, although his work is certainly flawed, it nevertheless deserves a place in both the history of business cycle theory and empirical economics.


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