دانلود رایگان مقاله الگوی مرکز- پیرامون چرخه تجاری اروپا: یک رهیافت خوشه ای فازی

Abstract

The literature on business cycle synchronization in Europe frequently presumes an alleged ‘core‒periphery’ pattern without providing empirical verification of the underlying cyclical (dis)similarities or the supposed but unobservable ‘European business cycle(s).’ To provide a data-based country group analysis, we apply a fuzzy clustering approach to quarterly output gap series of 27 European countries over the period 1996‒2015. Our results confirm the existence of a persistent core cluster as opposed to clusters on the Eastern and Southern European peripheries, highlighting the inadequate composition of the euro area (EA). Moreover, we find that Germany’s business cycle is not a suitable substitute for the core. By analyzing the relation between the identified ‘European core business cycle’ and the peripheral cycles over time, we show diverging patterns for the southern periphery after the financial crisis as well as convergence for the eastern periphery.

4. Conclusion

The recent euro crisis has underlined the need to address European business cycle patterns from a country group perspective. Previous research often uses the distinction between the core and the periphery either to analyze cyclical synchronization in arbitrarily predefined groups or to classify countries’ synchronicities with respect to several reference measures. Differently from these studies, we propose a time series fuzzy clustering approach to assess the core‒periphery pattern empirically in a direct manner that does not require strict assumptions. By applying the FCM clustering algorithm to output gap series of 27 European countries, we identify a core group consisting of Central European countries opposed to several clusters on the eastern and southern European peripheries along with the representative group-specific European business cycles. Both the classification and the obtained reference cycles may be used by the literature dealing with business cycle synchronization. For instance, the detected European core business cycle can be regarded as an anchor cycle for all countries wishing to share a common currency with the core countries (which mostly have already adopted the euro). We find evidence against using Germany’s business cycle as a proxy for that cycle, as other core countries, like France, follow the European core business cycle more closely. Remarkably, this is also true for Italy, which is sometimes classified as belonging to the southern European periphery.