Participants:
Project Objectives:
This network will bring together, over a four-year
period, some of the best known researchers in Europe to develop new
approaches to quantitative analysis of economic fluctuations. A number
of new approaches to the analysis of fluctuations have emerged recently
in the theoretical literature, which highlight the roles played by the
heterogeity of firms and households, rigidities in price and wage
adjustment, and externalities and multiple equilibria. There is,
however, little empirical evidence on the importance of these factors in
explaining fluctuations at the levels of the nation, the region, the
household and the firm. The network will develop new statistical methods
suitable for extracting both dynamic and cross-sectional information and
apply these techniques to newly available datasets.
The project brings together eight leading
institutions from seven EU countries to undertake three connected lines
of research: to study the aggregate characteristics of the European
business cycle with the goal of establishing the ‘main facts’
(dating of turning points, comovements between aggregates in different
countries, possible asymmetries of expansions and recessions); to use
disaggregated data – at the regional, sectoral and firm level – to
investigate the link between aggregate behaviour and microdynamics; and
to match established cyclical characteristics with the predictions of
existing equilibrium macroeconomic models, with the goal of
discriminating between different classes of models.
The network will pursue a programme of research and
training which involves not only the development of new methodologies
but also the application of these methodologies to newly available
sources of data, in order to gain a better understanding of observed
economic fluctuations. The network has another important goal: in Europe
econometric research is often far removed from developments in
macroeconomics. The network therefore aims to foster closer
collaboration between econometricians and macroeconomists based in
Europe: the selection of the research teams has been made with this
interdisciplinary objective in mind.