Common Macroeconomic Shocks and Business Cycle Fluctuations in Euro Area Countries

This paper investigates the dynamic effects of common macroeconomic shocks in shaping business cycle fluctuations in a group of Euro-area countries. In particular, by using the structural (Near)VAR methodology, we investigate the effect of area-wide shocks, with particular attention to monetary policy shocks, on the evolution of inflation and output of the national economies. Preliminary results show that there are two distinct groups of countries: a first group, including the biggest European economies, in which business cycle fluctuations are mainly explained by common, areawide shocks; a second one, including Greece, Ireland and Portugal, in which the national shocks play, instead, a much greater role.