Three alternative econometric approaches are used to estimate business cycles in the Peruvian economy. These approaches are the Plucking model due to Friedman (1964, 1993), the Markov Switching model proposed by Hamilton (1989) and the Smooth Transition Autoregressive (STAR) model suggested by Teräsvirta (1994). The results show strong rejection of the null hypothesis of linearity, presence of asymmetries and nonlinearities. Furthermore, the methods allow to find the principal episodes of recession for the Peruvian economy.