Swedish Postwar Business Cycles: Generated Abroad or at Home?

The relative importance of foreign and domestic shocks for the Swedish postwar business cycle is examined in a neoclassical stochastic growth model of a small open economy. Since recent research has shown that fiscal policy shocks may be important for business cycles, I extend previous work in the literature by allowing for stochastic fiscal policy. It is found that the introduction of fiscal policy improves the empirical fit of the model, although not significantly so when hours worked are detrended with the HP filter. The results suggest that domestic shocks are more important than foreign shocks for output fluctuations. Among the domestic shocks, innovations in fiscal policy seem to have been more important than technology shocks during this period. Foreign shocks are very important for fluctuations in the real exchange rate and the current account.     

Business Cycle Properties of the Legitimate and Underground Economy in Australia

The business cycle characteristics of the legitimate economy have been examined quite extensively. In this paper we extend the standard business cycle analysis to the underground economy and compare it to the legitimate economy. Using National Bureau of Economic Research dating methodologies we find that classical cycles exhibit strong incidence of asymmetry while growth cycles appear relatively symmetric. We find that changes in legitimate activity lead to changes in underground activity but that the underground economy responds more to negative shocks in legitimate activity than to positive shocks. This implies that the underground economy is deepening economic downturns and increasing the volatility of the business cycle in general.     

实现经济周期波动在适度高位的平滑化

本文主要探讨未来5—8年的中期内,中国经济周期波动有可能出现的两个新特点:一是在波动的位势上,有可能实现持续多年的适度高位运行,潜在经济增长率将在9%左右;二是在波动的幅度上,有可能实现进一步的平滑化,使经济波动保持在8%—10%的适度增长区间内。这两个特点之所以说是“有可能”,一方面因为其中包含着一定的客观因素,另一方面因为未来还面临着许多新挑战。本文从中国国情出发,根据马克思的有关论述,并综合借鉴熊彼特周期理论和现代经济周期理论的有关分析思路,着重阐明中国本轮经济周期冲击因素的特点(类型特点、形成特点和作用特点),将经济的长期增长趋势与短期周期波动统一起来进行分析。这一分析的政策含义是,需要不断加强和改善宏观调控,努力实现经济周期波动在适度高位的平滑化。     

Endogenous technical progress,R&D periods and durations of business cycles

How do growth and cycles interact? Endogenous growth and business cycle theories are integrated to explain business cycles over different frequencies, especially at lower frequencies, on the balanced growth path. A new variable-R&;D time period-broadens the concept of intertemporal substitution and determines the durations of the medium and long cycles. As a result, the evolution of technology is separated from short-run shocks. A more promising new invention shrinks the R&;D period since waiting is costly, which pushes up the level of economic activity and causes a boom, while a less promising new invention does the opposite. The level of economic activity in turn affects the near-term growth rate. Thus, a recession is not caused by a negative shock as in the standard real business cycle models, but can be associated with a positive, though lower, growth rate of technology. The results capture the major features of U.S. data in both time and frequency domains.     

The Effects of Business Cycles on Growth - Time Series Evidence for the G7-countries Using Survey-based Measures of the Business Cycle

The paper analyses whether business cycle fluctuations affectlong-run growth. This hypothesis is tested using quarterly timeseries for the G7-countries. A vector-autoregressive model containingtotal factor productivity and a survey-based direct measureof the business cycle is estimated. In this vector-autoregression,technology and business cycle shocks are identified based onthe assumption that productivity-improving measures need sometime and, thus, there is no contemporaneous response of productivityto a business cycle innovation. The results suggest that positivebusiness cycles shocks have a small negative impact on long-runproductivity. However, the results appear to be not robust againstchanges in the empirical model.(JEL E32, O41)     

Towards an Understanding of Some Business Cycle Characteristics

For many years economists have debated the 'causes' of business cycles. Very little of this analysis has been closely matched with business cycle characteristics as measured by NBER-type dating methods. After summarising data on business cycle characteristics for a wide variety of countries, the article shows that an extremely simple statistical model of output growth, viz. that it is uncorrelated from month to month or quarter to quarter, produces business cycles that are close to those seen in practice. The demonstration involves the analysis of data simulated from this simple statistical model as well as some analytical work using a standard definition of a recession as being two quarters of negative growth. As well as explaining the average length of a cycle this model also accounts for the asymmetry between the lengths of expansions and contractions through the relative magnitudes of the trend rate of growth of the economy and the standard deviation of the shocks that impinge upon it.     

The endogeneity of the Optimum Currency Area criteria in East Asia

The Asian financial crisis in mid-1997 has increased interest in policies to achieve greater regional exchange rate stability in East Asia. It has renewed calls for greater monetary and exchange rate cooperation. A country's suitability to join a monetary union depends, inter alia, on the trade intensity and the business cycle synchronization with other potential members of the monetary union. However, these two Optimum Currency Area criteria are endogenous. Theoretically, the effect of increased trade integration (after the elimination of exchange fluctuations among the countries in the region) on the business cycle synchronization is ambiguous. Reduction in trade barriers can potentially increase industrial specialization by country and therefore resulting in more asymmetry business cycles from industry-specific shocks. On the other hand, increased trade integration may result in more highly correlated business cycles due to common demand shocks or intra-industry trade. If the second hypothesis is empirically verified, policy makers have little to worry about the region being unsynchronized in their business cycles as the business cycles will become more synchronized after the monetary union is formed. This paper assesses the dynamic relationships between trade, finance, specialization and business cycle synchronization for East Asian economies using a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach. The dynamic panel approach improves on previous efforts to examine the business cycle correlations — trade link using panel procedures, which control for the potential endogeneity of all explanatory variables. Based on the findings on how trade, finance and sectoral specialization have effects on the size of common shocks among countries, potential policies that can help East Asian countries move closer toward a regional currency arrangement can be suggested. The empirical results of this study suggest that there exists scope for East Asia to form a monetary union.     

The German labor market during the Great Recession: Shocks and institutions

This paper analyzes Germany's unusual labor market experience during the Great Recession. We estimate a general equilibrium model with a detailed labor market block for post-unification Germany. This allows us to disentangle the role of institutions (short-time work, government spending rules) and shocks (aggregate, labor market, and policy shocks) and to perform counterfactual exercises. We identify positive labor market performance shocks (likely caused by labor market reforms) as the key driver for the “German labor market miracle” during the Great Recession.     

Determinants of business cycles in small scale macroeconomic models: the German case

We identify measures of shocks to total factor productivity and preferences from two real business cycle models and subject them to Granger causality tests to see whether they can be considered exogenous to other plausible sources of the German business cycle. For West German data from 1960.i to 1989.iv we conclude that our measures of shocks are indeed exogenous. This contrasts with similar studies for other countries that question the exogeneity of either productivity or preference shocks. For the period 70.i to 01.iv we find that M3 Granger causes all of our shock measures. We attribute this to the breaks in our time series associated with the German reunification in 1990 and the European Monetary Union in 1999.Earlier versions of this paper circulate as University of Augsburg economics discussion paper no. 213 and Kiel Institute for World Economics working paper no. 1158, respectively.     

INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL FLOWS,BOOM‐BUST CYCLES,AND BUSINESS CYCLE SYNCHRONIZATION IN THE ASIA PACIFIC REGION

This article documents evidence of business cycle synchronization in selected Asia Pacific countries since the 1990s. We explain business cycle synchronization by the channel of international capital flows and boom‐bust cycles. Using the vector auto‐regression method, we find that most Asian countries experience boom‐bust cycles following capital inflows, where the boom in output is mostly driven by consumption and investment. Empirical evidence also shows that capital flow shocks are positively correlated in the region, which supports the conclusion that capital market liberalization has contributed to business cycle synchronization. (JEL F4)     

Key Features of Australian Business Cycles

This paper identifies and describes the key features of Australian business cycles during the period 1959–2002. In particular, we identify the chronologies in Australia's classical cycle (expansions and contractions in the level of output) and growth cycle (periods of above-trend and below-trend rates of economic growth). We find that while there are large asymmetries in the duration and amplitude of phases in Australia's classical cycle, on both measures the Australian growth cycle is much more symmetric. Further, our results indicate that over the sample period Australian (filtered) output and prices have moved in a counter-cyclical fashion, suggesting a dominance of shocks to aggregate supply affecting the Australian economy.     

HOW IMPORTANT ARE TERMS‐OF‐TRADE SHOCKS?

According to conventional wisdom, terms‐of‐trade shocks represent a major source of business cycles in emerging and poor countries. This view is largely based on the analysis of calibrated business‐cycle models. We argue that the view that emerges from empirical structural vector autoregression (SVAR) models is strikingly different. We estimate country‐specific SVARs using data from 38 countries and find that terms‐of‐trade shocks explain less than 10% of movements in aggregate activity. We then estimate key structural parameters of a three‐sector business‐cycle model country by country and find a disconnect between the importance assigned to terms‐of‐trade shocks by theoretical and SVAR models.     

A business cycle model with variable capacity utilization and demand disturbances

We develop a dynamic general-equilibrium model with demand (preference) shocks, estimated using Hall's (J. Labour Economics 15 (1997) 223) residual, that replicates U.S. business cycles well, at least compared to the real business cycle models. The key factor is cyclical capital utilization, which is based on imperfect competition, slow adjustments in capital stock, and fixed requirement of labor input. We also demonstrate theoretically that a representative-agent economy with preference shocks could be viewed as the reduced form of a heterogeneous-agents economy with incomplete markets. Specifically, a heterogeneous-agents economy with incomplete markets is aggregated into a representative-agent economy with preference shocks. This result would provide a microeconomic foundation for preference shock models. It is also shown that a shock to marginal utility of consumption and a shock to marginal disutility of labor have different effects.     

Interpreting fluctuations in output growth in China

Unlike in OECD countries, fluctuations in output growth in China are not straightforward in their interpretation. On the one hand, they reflect the business cycle, which results from shocks to aggregate demand. On the other hand, they also reflect the structural transformations that have accompanied China’s transition to a market economy. Demand shocks can be identified by virtue of the persistence of their impact. This paper decomposes the variance in provincial, regional, and national output growth according to its persistence characteristics. The results suggest that during the reform period, only a minority of output growth variance can be attributed to demand shocks and business cycle fluctuations. It is also found that there is substantial heterogeneity in the persistence characteristics of output growth across provinces. Implications of the findings for macroeconomic policy are discussed.     

Some empirical tests on the integration of economic activity between the euro area and the accession countries

This note looks at the correlation of short‐term business cycles in the euro area and the EU accession countries. The issue is assessed with the help of vector autoregressive models. There are clear differences in the degree of correlation between accession countries. For Hungary and Slovenia, euro area shocks can explain a large share of variation in industrial production, while for some countries this influence is much smaller. For the latter countries, the results imply that joining the monetary union could entail reasonably large costs, unless their business cycles converge closer to the euro area cycle. Generally, for smaller countries the relative influence of the euro area business cycle is larger. Also, it is found that the most advanced accession countries are at least as integrated with the euro area business cycle as some small present member countries of the monetary union. JEL classification: E32, F15, F42.     

Has the Euro changed the business cycle?

In contrast to the notion that the exchange-rate regime is non-neutral, there is little evidence that EMU has systematically changed the European business cycle. In fact, we find the volatility of macroeconomic variables largely unchanged before and after the introduction of the Euro. Exceptions are a strong decline in real exchange rate volatility and a considerable increase in cross-country correlations. To account for this finding, we develop a two-country business cycle model which is able to replicate key features of European data. In particular, the model correctly predicts a limited effect of EMU on standard business cycles statistics. However, further analysis reveals that the Euro has changed the nature of the cycle through its impact on the transmission mechanism. Cross-country spillovers have become relatively more, domestic shocks relatively less important in accounting for economic fluctuations under EMU. This explains why there is little change in unconditional volatilities.     

Business cycle synchronization and the Euro: A wavelet analysis

We use wavelet analysis to study business cycle synchronization across the EU-15 and the Euro-12 countries. Based on the wavelet transform, we propose a metric to measure and test for business cycles synchronization. Several conclusions emerge. France and Germany form the core of the Euro land, being the most synchronized countries with the rest of Europe. Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Finland do not show statistically relevant degrees of synchronization with Europe. We also show that some countries (like Spain) have a French accent, while others have a German accent (e.g., Austria). Perhaps surprisingly, we find that the French business cycle has been leading the German business cycle as well as the rest of Europe. Among the countries that may, in the future, join the Euro, the Czech Republic seems the most promising candidate.     

Emerging economy business cycles: Interest rate shocks vs trend shocks

The recent literature studying the source of business cycles in emerging market economies (EMEs) has debated the relative importance of productivity trend shocks versus interest rate shocks coupled with financial frictions. The studies in which an important role is assigned to interest rate shocks do not force their models to match the historical paths of the world or country interest rate. We show that this leads to poorly identified interest rate shocks and inaccurate measures of contributions of shocks to EME business cycles. To address this issue, we estimate a small open economy model for Argentina and Mexico using Bayesian methods where the world and country interest rate series in the model are forced to match their data counterparts. This estimation strategy results in larger variations in interest rate shock and, therefore, shifts explanatory power away from trend shocks towards interest rate shocks, although both shocks remain important.     

Total factor productivity and the propagation of shocks: Empirical evidence and implications for the business cycle

Using a robust sign restrictions approach, we study the response of total factor productivity (TFP) to structural shocks in a VAR framework. We find that TFP increases in response to adverse supply, demand, and wage mark-up shocks. Results for monetary policy shocks are insignificant. Following an adverse technology shock and reductions in government spending, TFP declines. Overall, we conclude that TFP fluctuates endogenously over the business cycle, a feature of the data that is not present in standard DSGE models.     

Balance Mechanics and Business Cycles

Abstract

Many mainstream business cycle theories were not able to cope with the financial crisis theoretically. With his concept of balance mechanics, the German economist Wolfgang Stützel developed a framework for comparing different theories of business cycles which helps to understand the reasons for this inadequacy. This paper works out Stützel’s considerations and his four “model cases” of cycles more systematically and shows how the theories of the business cycle Stützel mentioned are related to theories discussed today. Modern business cycle theories did not cover all “model cases” and therefore had a blind spot.