Dating Recessions from Industrial Production Indexes: An Analysis for Europe and the US

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the business cycles of 15 European countries and the US. We locate the expansionary and recessionary periods by dating the turning points of an industrial production index using the Bry-Boschan procedure. We find that there is high concordance in the business cycles of European countries, especially in terms of the characteristics of the cycle phases (duration and amplitude of expansions and contractions). However, some significant differences still persist, most notably in the concordance of peaks and troughs and in the cycles of a set of non-core countries, which includes Finland, Greece and, less so, Ireland and Italy.