Do European business cycles look like one?

This paper provides a comprehensive framework to analyze business cycle features other than synchronization. We use stationary bootstrap and model-based clustering methods to analyze similarities and differences among the European cycles. We find evidence that the length, deep and shape of cycles differ across European countries and that these differences are not decreasing over time. Finally, even though we find some correlation between business cycle synchronization and characteristics, there is important information in the characteristics that is not captured by the synchronization measures.