International Business Cycle Indicators, Measurement and Forecasting

In this paper the business cycles of nine OECD-countries are identified by applying the Christiano-Fitzgerald bandpass filter. Turning points, recession and expansion phases and other descriptive statistics are derived from these business cylce indicators. Moreover, the international linkage between two economies is investigated by measuring the degree of synchronism of the two corresponding cyclical motions. In addition to measuring the cyclical fluctuation, a composite leading indicator is constructed which replicates and predicts the business cycle. This leading indicator is a single index composed of economic, financial and expectation variables possessing leading properties. The real-time performance of the constructed business cycle indicator for the Netherlands is compared to the performance of a similar indicator based on the Hodrick-Prescott filter methodology.