Business Cycle Similarity Measuring in the Eurozone Member and Candidate Countries: an Alternative Approach

The article sheds some light on the process of measuring business cycle similarity and points out the fact that contemporary studies usually simplify this problem by measuring a simple correlation of cyclical development in GDP. The main goal is to assess the level of business cycle similarity in selected Eurozone member and candidate countries using the Concordance index. The Concordance index embodies an alternative and rarely used approach to measuring the similarity of business cycles. The article also includes a comparison of the Concordance index technique with traditional correlation methods. The results show that the Czech Republic belongs to the states with relatively high level of concordance comparing to the other Eurozone member and candidate countries. Accordingly, the measure of business cycle concordance should not serve as an argument for slowing down of the monetary integration process in the Czech Republic. The resultant concordance measures also give an evidence of relatively low level of the business cycle similarity of Slovak economy and the Eurozone, which might imply a possibly higher risk of the asymmetric shock occurrence in Slovakia.