Analysis of the situation of european countries in the economic cycle

Abstract

The article defines the economic cycles of selected European countries from the 2000s to the present by comparing and contrasting macroeconomic indicators. The selected countries: Germany, United Kingdom, Hungary and Ukraine. The economic cycle, also known as the business cycle, refers to economic fluctuations between periods of expansion and contraction. Factors such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), interest rates, employment levels, inflation and the level of government debt can help determine the stage of the current business cycle. Businesses and investors need to manage their strategies through economic cycles - not to manage them, but to survive them and possibly profit from them by assessing them. The paper first presents the most important theoretical aspects of the business cycle, including the four phases of the cycle. Furthermore, once the indicators have been determined, the cycles are broken down into sections by country with the help of diagrams. The research pays special attention to the year 2023 to provide insight into the most current economic situation. In conclusion, it can be observed that the countries' economic cycles experienced growth and reached their peak before the 2008 global economic crisis. This global event economically burdened all countries, leading to various difficulties in the 2010s that hampered economic growth. The COVID-19 pandemic further impacted every country, with European economies still struggling to return to pre-pandemic levels. The Russian-Ukrainian war, which broke out in February 2022, exacerbated the high inflation resulting from the pandemic. In 2023, most countries reached the lowest point in the cycle, with Ukraine's economy being the exception, showing a growing trend.