Investigating the long cycles of capitalism with spectral and Cross-Spectral analysis

Abstract

The persistent current phase of negative growth has already triggered the awak-ening of long wave theories. Although long waves are obvious, even with a simple visual observation of the history of the data, doubts as to their existence are ex-pressed by a variety of different theoretical and empirical approaches. However, the increasing number of statistical methods for long wave examination illus-trates very clearly that their confirmation, as well as their periodization, depends both on theoretical fixations and / or the use of different empirical methodolo-gies. The present paper uses Spectral Analysis in order to investigate the im-portance of the long lasting cycles in the periodicity of European Countries’ eco-nomic evolution. The correlation and timing differences among them are identi-fied with the help of Cross-Spectral analysis.