Do institutional changes affect business cycles? : evidence from Europe

Abstract

We study the effects that the Maastricht treaty, the creation of the ECB, and the Euro changeover had on the dynamics of European business cycles using a panel VAR and data from ten European countries - seven from the Euro area and three outside of it. There are slow changes in the features of business cycles and in the transmission of shocks. Time variations appear to be unrelated to the three events of interest and instead linked to a process of European convergence and synchronization