Business cycles in Switzerland: A comparative study

Abstract The goal of this paper is to provide an empirical description of business cycles in Switzerland and a comparison with business cycles in other countries. We adopt a view of business cycles as a set of regularities in the movements and the co-movements of economic aggregates common to all decentralized economies [Lucas (1977)] and test whether Switzerland conforms to this view. In order to identify the appropriate cyclical series, we follow a procedure proposed by Hodrick and Prescott (1980). We then compute correlations of various types, we test their stability through time and compare with corresponding estimates for the U.S., France, Germany and the U.K.