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This paper focuses on the business cycle experience of the accession countries. Aside from its intrinsic interest, a natural motivation for such an investigation can be derived from the prospect that these countries, shortly after acceding to EU, will be encouraged to qualify for participation in EMU. Actually, in joining the EU these countries acquire the “acquis communautaire” which, inter alia, obliges them to attempt to qualify for EMU participation. The formal criteria under which such participation will be enjoined are those provided by the Treaty of European Union (the Treaty of Maastricht). No accession country has been allowed an “opt-out” from the obligation to join if it meets the criteria, such as was negotiated by the UK, and by Denmark.
Optimal Currency Area (OCA) theory provides an alternative set of criteria which countries might do well to consider to obtain advice on the advisability and best timing of such a passage. According to the traditional statement of OCA (following the seminal paper of Mundell (1961), the dominant criteria are the extent of trade with the potential partner countries (trade is a positive indication for union) and the extent to which the experience of shocks is common (symmetric) or asymmetric (an asymmetry of shocks being a negative indication). A widely-used device for measuring the symmetry or asymmetry of shocks is a measure of the synchronicity of business cycle experience – hence the relevance of this paper to this decision. It is also in this light that the paper makes a comparison between the relative business cycle experience of the current enlargement countries and that in some of the late joiners in previous periods.
The debate between the fact that is it population that is increasing poverty or is it increasing poverty accompanied by the lack of education and civic amenities that justifies a poor persons status - is still need to be resolved along-with the policies to be formulated at the national level. But all this leads us to another query as to whatever the efforts are put forth by the governments in raising the level of GNP/GDP, is it really translating into the well being of an individual and enhancing the level of human development? Several studies find that happiness has some linkages to future economic success [Pollak, (1970); Eastern, (1974); Veenhoven, (1993); Clark and Oswald,(1994); Winkelmann and Winkelmann, (1998) and, Diener and Biswas-Diener, 1999)]. The reality is that life opportunities for a number of people are expanding. Unfortunately, at the same time there is considerably a large number of people who are still caught in the vicious circle of poverty and misery, ill health and lack of opportunities. Richard Easterlin (1974) was the first economist to make prominent use of happiness data when he reported that despite increases in personal income over time, people were not reporting an increasing level of happiness. The pattern of economic growth without increase in happiness would result also if people become accustomed over time to increases in income, as in the model of Pollak (1970). In Japan, income rose by a multiple of five between 1958 and 1987, and happiness remained stationary (Veenhoven, 1993).
Happiness seems to be based on relative income rather than absolute income and even adapts to changes in the level of income. Sometimes differences in happiness arise depending on which cohort or which ethnic group is followed over time (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2000, 2004). There appears to be transitory income effects that do not often translate into permanently different levels of happiness. Di Tella, MacCulloch and Oswald (2003) presented results, which were consistent with adaptation to income over time. Thus, while analyzing growth patterns for determining the level of well-being and happiness one should be very clear how a person’s current income should enter the utility function. In this connection, Easterlin (1974) explained “Happiness scores carry no meaning, they are not comparable across people, people redefines their happiness scores over time, happiness should depend on health, environment, leisure and variables other than income”. Happiness is more a qualitative and subjective matter; nevertheless, it is not absolutely impossible to translate it into quantitative terms. No doubt, it keeps on changing with time and perception. Luttmer (2004) has also mentioned that what people mean “happiness” might shift over time.
