International Business Cycle Comovement Research Articles

Utilization-adjusted TFP across countries: Measurement and implications for international comovement

This paper develops estimates of TFP growth adjusted for movements in unobserved factor utilization for a panel of 29 countries and up to 37 years. When factor utilization changes are unobserved, the commonly used Solow residual mismeasures actual changes in TFP. We use a general equilibrium dynamic multi-country multi-sector model to derive a production function estimating equation that corrects for unobserved factor usage. We compare the properties of utilization-adjusted TFP series to the standard Solow residual, and quantify the roles of both TFP and utilization for international business cycle comovement. Utilization-adjusted TFP is virtually uncorrelated across countries, and does not generate much GDP comovement through its propagation. Shocks to factor utilization can more successfully account for international comovement.

National culture and international business cycle co-movements

ABSTRACT We investigate the relationship between national culture and international business cycle co-movements. We first characterize international business cycle co-movements with a dynamic latent factor model that decomposes 101 countries’ real GDP growth rates into world, regional and country-specific factors and estimate the proportion of real GDP growth rate variance explained by the world, regional and country factors for each country. We then regress these proportions on each of the five dimensions of Hofstede’s national culture with a set of control variables. We find that four dimensions (except for power distance) are significantly related to business cycle co-movements, and they have different impacts. In countries with masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation preferences, the global factor explains a larger real GDP growth rate variance. Individualism weakens a country’s business cycle co-movement with the global business cycle. Countries with similar cultural values have similar economic structures and similar exposures to global shocks, which lead to business cycle co-movements. Our results are robust after addressing the issue of endogeneity and subsample analyses.

Business cycle co-movements and transmission channels: evidence from China

This article examines the impacts of international trade, foreign direct investment (FDI) and industrial structure on international business cycle co-movements between China and its major trading partners. We investigate the principal transmission factors of business cycle co-movements and their contributions to China’s economic growth in the context of economic globalization. Through studying the 27 major trading partners during 1990–2015, we find that, from China’s perspective, the synchronization tendency was continuously growing before the 2008 financial crisis but slowed down or even reversed after the crisis. Bilateral trade intensity and FDI intensity contributed more to cyclical co-movement behaviors between China and its emerging market partners, but less to economic synchronization between China and its advanced economic partners. Industrial structure similarity, on the contrary, could explain the co-movement behaviors between China and its advanced economic partners, but not emerging market partners. China’s past economic growth was also significantly correlated with the economic performance of its non-Asian trading partners, but not Asian neighbors.

Trade Linkages and International Business Cycle Comovement: Evidence from Korean Industry Data

Through the 2000s, Korea’s export and import linkages to advanced and emerging markets increased significantly. At the same time, the correlation of output growth between Korea and these economies rose. This paper investigates the nature of the link between trade linkages and the comovement of international business cycles (BC) using Korean industry-level domestic and international input-output data. The results suggest that, at the industry-level, higher export linkages lead to a larger positive GDP growth comovement, while higher import linkages lead to higher negative employment growth comovement. Furthermore, the decomposition of aggregate BC comovement shows that the increase in trade with China has contributed the most to aggregate BC comovement, while the impact of trade linkages on BC comovement is propagated domestically via vertical linkages. These findings suggest that the Korean economy can be significantly affected by a few countries that are highly linked through trade to Korea and/or a few industries that are highly interconnected to other industries.

Trade Linkages and International Business Cycle Comovement: Evidence from Korean Industry Data

Through the 2000s, Korea’s export and import linkages to advanced and emerging markets increased significantly. At the same time, the correlation of output growth between Korea and these economies rose. This paper investigates the nature of the link between trade linkages and the comovement of international business cycles (BC) using Korean industry-level domestic and international input-output data. The results suggest that, at the industry-level, higher export linkages lead to a larger positive GDP growth comovement, while higher import linkages lead to higher negative employment growth comovement. Furthermore, the decomposition of aggregate BC comovement shows that the increase in trade with China has contributed the most to aggregate BC comovement, while the impact of trade linkages on BC comovement is propagated domestically via vertical linkages. These findings suggest that the Korean economy can be significantly affected by a few countries that are highly linked through trade to Korea and/or a few industries that are highly interconnected to other industries.

Exchange Rate Disconnect in General Equilibrium

We propose a dynamic general equilibrium model of exchange rate determination, which simultaneously accounts for all major exchange rate puzzles. This includes the Meese-Rogoff disconnect puzzle, the PPP puzzle, the terms-of-trade puzzle, the Backus-Smith puzzle, and the UIP puzzle. We build on a standard international real business cycle model augmented with a financial sector with noise traders and risk-averse intermediaries, which results in equilibrium UIP deviations due to limits to arbitrage. We show that financial UIP shocks result in persistent near-martingale processes for exchange rates and ensure empirically relevant comovement properties between exchange rates and macro variables, including excess exchange-rate volatility relative to aggregate consumption and output. In contrast, conventional productivity and monetary shocks, while successful in explaining the international business cycle comovement, result in counterfactual exchange rate dynamics with insufficient volatility. As a result, when combined together, the two sets of shocks reproduce both the exchange rate disconnect behavior and the empirical business cycle properties. The transmission mechanism relies on a conventional Taylor rule, home bias in consumption, and muted pass-through of exchange rates into prices and quantities due to pricing to market and weak substitutability between home and foreign goods. Nominal rigidities improve somewhat the quantitative performance of the model, yet are not necessary for the exchange rate disconnect, as monetary shocks are not the key drivers of the exchange rate.

Large Firms and International Business Cycle Comovement

This paper investigates the role of the top 100 firms in France in aggregate business cycle comovement. We establish that the top 100 firms (i) are important in aggregate; (ii) exhibit stronger international linkages than the rest of the economy; and (iii) contribute substantially to aggregate comovement.

International Business Cycles Among the Asia Pacific Economies: Implications for APEC Cooperation

This paper examines the characteristics of international business cycles among the Asia-Pacific economies in the period of 2000:Q1-2013:Q4. A dynamic factor model is estimated for the output fluctuations and five macroeconomic drivers of business cycles. The estimation extracts the latent common factor shared by fourteen APEC economies and the region-specific factors of North America, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. We find that the relative contributions of the common and region-specific factors of business cycles are significant in accounting for national output fluctuations. Evidence for international business cycle comovements is strong between North America and the common business cycle particularly at low frequencies. North America and Northeast Asia also show significant business cycle synchronization. As for the driving forces of business cycles, international trade provides the largest contribution across four regions in the Asia Pacific and the monetary policy and productivity drivers are subsequent to it. The overall finding signifies the greater probability of economic cooperation and regionally coordinated monetary policies among the APEC economies.

Financial integration and international business cycle co-movement

International business cycle transmission through integrated financial markets occurs through wealth and balance sheet effects. Balance sheet effects lead to business cycle convergence, but wealth effects lead to divergence. This paper shows empirically that debt market integration has a positive effect on co-movement, implying that balance sheet effects are the main conduit for international transmission through integrated debt markets. Equity market integration has a negative effect, implying that wealth effects are the main channel for international transmission through integrated equity markets. Distinguishing between wealth and balance sheet effects resolves some key discrepancies between empirical and theoretical findings in international macroeconomics.

International Business Cycles Among the Asia Pacific Economies: Implications for APEC Cooperation

This paper examines the characteristics of international business cycles among the Asia-Pacific economies in the period of 2000:Q1-2013:Q4. A dynamic factor model is estimated for the output fluctuations and five macroeconomic drivers of business cycles. The estimation extracts the latent common factor shared by fourteen APEC economies and the region-specific factors of North America, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. We find that the relative contributions of the common and region-specific factors of business cycles are significant in accounting for national output fluctuations. Evidence for international business cycle comovements is strong between North America and the common business cycle particularly at low frequencies. North America and Northeast Asia also show significant business cycle synchronization. As for the driving forces of business cycles, international trade provides the largest contribution across four regions in the Asia Pacific and the monetary policy and productivity drivers are subsequent to it. The overall finding signifies the greater probability of economic cooperation and regionally coordinated monetary policies among the APEC economies.

International business cycle co-movement: the role of FDI

This article investigates the relationship between FDI and business cycle synchronization in the period 1982 to 2011 for eight industrialized countries. We find that more synchronized business cycles are associated with stronger FDI relations in the period 1995 to 2011, but not before 1995. More intensive FDI links are also associated with a greater vulnerability to lagged output spillovers from abroad. Our findings suggest that FDI has become a separate channel through which economies may affect each other and that FDI stocks are now an essential aspect of economic interdependence.

International Business Cycle Coherence and Phases

This paper examines international linkages amongst G7 economies, in terms of co-movements in output growth and fluctuations, in the frequency domain. The paper has identified patterns in international business cycle co-movements among the G7, offering a general outlook of international business cycle co-movements. Moreover, the paper details the lower frequency, higher frequency and middle range characteristics of international co-movements in output growth and fluctuations. The main findings of the study are that co-movements among G7 economies are considerably stronger at lower frequencies, and G7 economies have become more synchronized considerably in episode 2 since the new millennium. The results and findings show support for real business cycle theory being extended to an international arena, with long effect real shocks impacting economies across borders. The three euro economies become more integrated since the new millennium, against a background that all G7 economies have also become more synchronized.

International business cycle co-movement and vertical specialization reconsidered in multistage Bayesian DSGE model

Business cycle co-movements across countries have been widely documented, and East Asian economies show no exception. We reevaluate a Bayesian estimated two-country real business cycle model with non-sequentially traded intermediates and a New Keynesian model that incorporates simple vertical specialization using trade-weighted observable series of nine East and Southeast Asian economies. Unsurprisingly, counterfactual co-movements are generated. The failure of these models, we argue, stems from the inappropriate formalization of vertical linkage in production and trade. By extending a two-country New Keynesian model with three processing stages to authentically embrace vertical specialization in the form of vertical and processing trade, we show that the Bayesian estimated model is capable of replicating satisfactorily the business cycle co-movements over a large set of macroeconomic variables. And the quantitative ability survives a battery of sensitivity analysis. We thus infer that formalizing vertical and sequential linkage in production through the lens of three processing stages is a fruitful exercise for an international business cycle model to solve trade-comovement puzzle.

No Coupling, No Decoupling, Only Mutual Inter-Dependence: Business Cycles in Emerging vs. Mature Economies

Even before the events of the past few years, economists and policy makers were musing about the apparent contradiction between globalization, as it is generally understood, and the seemingly different paths in overall economic activity taken by the emerging and more mature economies of the world. The present paper reconsiders whether it is, in fact, useful to think of correlations in business cycle movements as reflecting some form of coupling or decoupling and, instead, suggests that, even if business cycles may well have become more synchronous for a time, it is more useful to think of international business cycle co-movements as reflecting their mutual dependence that can be subjected to short-run interruptions or affected by a variety of other economic factors. I report evidence based on factor-augmented quantile regressions for a panel of annual data since 1980 from 9 regions of the world. A panel is used to estimate the common factors which are then applied to the quantile regression model to determine the sources of business cycle co-movements across countries and regions of the world.

Labor market frictions and the international propagation mechanism

The paper studies the role of labor market frictions in accounting for international business cycle comovement. To this aim, we embed labor market search and matching frictions in a two-country New Keynesian model. We show that labor market frictions amplify the international propagation of supply and demand shocks. In terms of cyclical properties then, they raise the cross-country output correlation. Adding labor market search in the New Keynesian model thus improves its ability to account for the business cycle comovement observed in G7 countries in the recent decades. Nominal wage rigidity substantially contributes to this result. Labor market institutions also play a role. Yet, their impact is not unequivocal depending on the institution considered. Business cycle synchronization is thus found to increase with the generosity of the unemployment benefits system, whereas it decreases with the strictness of employment protection.

International Business Cycle Comovement: Trade and Foreign Direct Investment

This paper investigates the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and business cycle synchronization in the period 1982–2010 for eight industrialized countries. We find that more synchronized business cycles are associated with stronger FDI relations during 1995–2010, but that they are mainly associated with stronger trade linkages before 1995. More intensive FDI links are also associated with a greater vulnerability to lagged output spillovers from abroad, whereas trade links are not. Our findings suggest that FDI has become a separate channel through which economies may affect each other and that FDI stocks are now an essential aspect of economic interdependence.

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Financial Integration and International Business Cycle Co-movement: Wealth Effects vs. Balance Sheet Effects

Abstract Different types of international financial integration have different effects on cross-country business cycle co-movement. International business cycle transmission through financial integration occurs through the wealth and balance sheet effects. The balance sheet effect leads to business cycle convergence, but the wealth effect leads to divergence. Using a crosssectional regression, this paper shows that cross-border credit market integration (debt) has a positive effect on co-movement, implying that the balance sheet effect is the main conduit for international transmission through credit markets. However, cross-border capital market integration (equity) has a negative effect, implying that the wealth effect is the main channel for international transmission through capital markets. By distinguishing between wealth and balance sheet effects, this paper resolves many discrepancies between some key empirical and theoretical findings in the open economy macro literature, between different studies in the theoretical literature, and between empirical studies that use a cross-sectional regression and those employing panel data.

International Business Cycle Co-Movements through Time: The Anglo-Saxon Experience

Over the past 40 years the business cycles of Anglo-Saxon countries have become more closely synchronized. This paper investigates whether the factors suggested for explaining cycle co-movements across countries can also explain changes through time. We find that most of the cross-sectional explanations – trade, industrial structure and relative market flexibility – can also explain changes through time. However, the size and sign of the impact vary across country pairs. JEL Classifications: E32, F15, F42

Trade and business cycle co-movements in Asia-Pacific

Recent empirical studies argue that the formation of a monetary union synchronizes the business cycles of member countries substantially by promoting their mutual trade. Other studies highlight the role of industry-specific shocks in national business cycles and suggest that the effect of trade intensity on international income co-movements is conditional on the industrial structures of individual countries. This paper examines the empirical relationship between trade and business cycle correlations among thirteen Asia-Pacific countries, paying close attention to the structural characteristics of their economies and other issues not explored in the literature. According to our result, although trade appears to help account for variations in international business cycle co-movements, a more important factor is the extent to which each country specializes in the electronics industry. To the extent that this is the case, growing trade in East Asia does not necessarily imply that the region is approaching an optimum currency area, nor is it guaranteed that monetary unification will transform it into one even ex post.