Real and Financial Cycles in Euro Area Economies: Results from Wavelet Analysis

Abstract

AbstractWe study the within-country dimension of financial cycles in the four largest euro area economies using tools from wavelet analysis. We focus on credit and house price cycles which are most commonly used to represent the financial cycle. With the exception of Germany, the variables contain important common cycles within each country close to the upper bound of business cycle length and beyond which can be interpreted as financial cycles. These cycles are closely linked to domestic cycles in real activity showing financial and real economic cycles as interconnected phenomena. For these common cycles, credit and house prices lag real GDP.