Μελέτη και διερεύνηση της συμπεριφοράς των οικονομικών κύκλων

Σκανδάλη, Μαρία Λ.

Empirical investigation of business cycles

Master Thesis

Author

Σκανδάλη, Μαρία Λ.

Date

2014-01-13

Abstract

It is easy to observe that a big part of humanity's economic history is covered by periods that are characterized by phenomena such as recession, unemployment and decreased production on the one hand and growth, employment and enlargement on the other hand. The frequency with which recession followed prosperity led to the fundamental conclusion that economic activity does not evolve linearly. Taking this as granted, economists tried to develop models that would explain the repeated processes of economy. This fact led to the formulation of the theory of Business cycles. The creation of the European Union and particularly the monetary unification rekindled the interest of economists for this part of economic theory, which had not been central to their debates for quite some time. At this point, the need arose for the configuration of a model which could analyze the cost-profit relation from the accession of a country to this union. This procedure based on the theory of Economic Circles and their synchronization led to the establishment of the theory of Optimum Currency Areas (OCA). According to this theory, the degree to which the economies of the countries in a monetary union are synchronized, determines the cost or the profit that each country would shoulder from the loss of its monetary independence. Keeping in mind the current economic crisis in southern European countries and the opinions of economists who believe that a country in recession can recover by regaining its monetary independence, this thesis will attempt to investigate the degree of heterogeneity between the countries of the European Union and to analyze their Business cycles.