Business Cycle Synchronization in Croatia

The purpose of this paper is to analyze business cycle synchronization in the Croatian economy using various annualized growth rate variables over a period of eighteen years (1992-2010), de-trended by a Hodrick-Prescott filter, and following the Harding and Pagan methodological procedure in the determination of its turning points. Our conceptual analysis of synchronization is based on the technique of concordance indexes and correlation coefficients obtained by the HAC estimators. The main result of the research shows that there is a high degree of probability that dismissal of employees in the Croatian economy will coincide with the contraction phase in industry. The cyclic phase of growth in job creation in great measure coincides with the cyclic phase of growth in exports and the construction sector, as well as with tourist arrivals. There is an almost perfect synchronization between the cyclic phases of the construction sector and imports. The central conclusion of the paper is that this study can establish stylized facts about the dynamics of Croatian business cycles.