Global Business Cycles


Book Description

This paper analyzes the evolution of the degree of global cyclical interdependence over the period 1960-2005. We categorize the 106 countries in our sample into three groups-industrial countries, emerging markets, and other developing economies. Using a dynamic factor model, we then decompose macroeconomic fluctuations in key macroeconomic aggregates-output, consumption, and investment-into different factors. These are: (i) a global factor, which picks up fluctuations that are common across all variables and countries; (ii) three group-specific factors, which capture fluctuations that are common to all variables and all countries within each group of countries; (iii) country factors, which are common across all aggregates in a given country; and (iv) idiosyncratic factors specific to each time series. Our main result is that, during the period of globalization (1985-2005), there has been some convergence of business cycle fluctuations among the group of industrial economies and among the group of emerging market economies. Surprisingly, there has been a concomitant decline in the relative importance of the global factor. In other words, there is evidence of business cycle convergence within each of these two groups of countries but divergence (or decoupling) between them.




Economic Convergence in the Euro Area: Coming Together or Drifting Apart?


Book Description

We examine economic convergence among euro area countries on multiple dimensions. While there was nominal convergence of inflation and interest rates, real convergence of per capita income levels has not occurred among the original euro area members since the advent of the common currency. Income convergence stagnated in the early years of the common currency and has reversed in the wake of the global economic crisis. New euro area members, in contrast, have seen real income convergence. Business cycles became more synchronized, but the amplitude of those cycles diverged. Financial cycles showed a similar pattern: sychronizing more over time, but with divergent amplitudes. Income convergence requires reforms boosting productivity growth in lagging countries, while cyclical and financial convergence can be enhanced by measures to improve national and euro area fiscal policies, together with steps to deepen the single market.




Markups, Gaps, and the Welfare Costs of Business Fluctuations


Book Description

In this paper we present a simple, theory-based measure of the variations in aggregate economic efficiency associated with business fluctuations. We decompose this indicator, which we refer to as 'the gap', into two constituent parts: a price markup and a wage markup, and show that the latter accounts for the bulk of the fluctuations in our gap measure. Finally, we derive a measure of the welfare costs of business cycles that is directly related to our gap variable, and which takes into account explicitly the existence of a varying aggregate inefficiency. When applied to postwar U.S. data, for plausible parametrizations, our measure suggests welfare losses of fluctuations that are of a higher order of magnitude than those derived by Lucas (1987). It also suggests that the major postwar recessions involved substantial efficiency costs.




Trade Integration and Business Cycle Synchronization


Book Description

This paper reexamines the relationship between trade integration and business cycle synchronization (BCS) using new value-added trade data for 63 advanced and emerging economies during 1995–2012. In a panel framework, we identify a strong positive impact of trade intensity on BCS—conditional on various controls, global common shocks and country-pair heterogeneity—that is absent when gross trade data are used. That effect is bigger in crisis times, pointing to trade as an important crisis propagation mechanism. Bilateral intra-industry trade and trade specialization correlation also appear to increase co-movement, indicating that not only the intensity but also the type of trade matters. Finally, we show that dependence on Chinese final demand in value-added terms amplifies the international spillovers and synchronizing impact of growth shocks in China.




Financial Crises Explanations, Types, and Implications


Book Description

This paper reviews the literature on financial crises focusing on three specific aspects. First, what are the main factors explaining financial crises? Since many theories on the sources of financial crises highlight the importance of sharp fluctuations in asset and credit markets, the paper briefly reviews theoretical and empirical studies on developments in these markets around financial crises. Second, what are the major types of financial crises? The paper focuses on the main theoretical and empirical explanations of four types of financial crises—currency crises, sudden stops, debt crises, and banking crises—and presents a survey of the literature that attempts to identify these episodes. Third, what are the real and financial sector implications of crises? The paper briefly reviews the short- and medium-run implications of crises for the real economy and financial sector. It concludes with a summary of the main lessons from the literature and future research directions.




Adjustment and Growth in the European Monetary Union


Book Description

The Maastricht Treaty, signed in December 1991, set a timetable for the European Community's economic and monetary union (EMU) and clearly defined the institutional policy changes necessary for its achievement. Subsequent developments have demonstrated, however, the importance of many key issues in the transition to EMU that were largely neglected at the time. This volume reports the proceedings of a joint CEPR conference with the Banco de Portugal, held in January 1992. In these papers, leading international experts address the instability of the transition to EMU, the long-run implications of monetary union and the single market for growth and convergence in Europe. They also consider the prospects for inflation and fiscal convergence, regional policy and the integration of financial markets and fiscal systems. Attention focuses on adjustment mechanisms with differentiated shocks, region-specific business cycles and excessive industrial concentration and the cases for a two-speed EMU and fiscal federalism.




Three Cycles


Book Description

We examine the characteristics and comovement of cycles in house prices, credit, real activity and interest rates in advanced economies during the past 25 years, using a dynamic generalized factor model. House price cycles generally lead credit and business cycles over the long term, while in the short to medium term the relationship varies across countries. Interest rates tend to lag other cycles at all time horizons. While global factors are important, the U.S. business cycle, house price cycle and interest rate cycle generally lead the respective cycles in other countries over all time horizons, while the U.S. credit cycle leads mainly over the long term.




The Evidence and Impact of Financial Globalization


Book Description

The sharp realities of financial globalization become clear during crises, when winners and losers emerge. Crises usher in short- and long-term changes to the status quo, and everyone agrees that learning from crises is a top priority. The Evidence and Impact of Financial Globalization devotes separate articles to specific crises, the conditions that cause them, and the longstanding arrangements devised to address them. While other books and journal articles treat these subjects in isolation, this volume presents a wide-ranging, consistent, yet varied specificity. Substantial, authoritative, and useful, these articles provide material unavailable elsewhere. Substantial articles by top scholars sets this volume apart from other information sources Rapidly developing subjects will interest readers well into the future Reader demand and lack of competitors underline the high value of these reference works




Consequences of the European Monetary Integration on Financial Systems


Book Description

The volume consists of twelve chapters that represent updated and revised versions of papers presented at the 11th International Conference on Finance and Banking which took place at Silesian University - School of Business Administration in Karviná, Czech Republic on 17 – 18 October 2007. The chapters are arranged in three thematic parts focusing on exchange rates, financial markets and monetary policy. The purpose of the book is to identify effects of the European monetary integration in financial systems of original, new and potential euro area member countries. The book also aims to evaluate how different are the effects in countries at different stage of the integration process and how important are the implications for national economic policies. Although each chapter is originally an independent study all of them were selected by the editors in order to create consistent book offering a rich blend of well grounded theory, innovative empirical approaches, fresh ideas, and striking conclusions. Contributors include scholars, researchers, central bankers and financial practitioners from respected universities and financial institutions. “I highly recommend this book to everyone, economist or not, who want to better understand the enormous challenges that financial systems nowadays have to face, particularly in the context of the European monetary integration. One of the main advantages of this book is that it does not reflect the opinion of only one author, but instead, it presents the views of 23 authors, all academics and qualified researchers, working in well known universities and research institutions from different EU and non EU countries.” — Candida Ferreira, Associate Professor, School of Economics and Management, Technical University of Lisbon (ISEG-UTL) and Research Unit on Complexity and Economics (UECE) “Analyzing the consequences of the European monetary integration on financial systems is certainly a challenging task, but this book tackles it very successfully by presenting a rich collection of highly original studies on the most relevant issues: exchange rate convergence of euro-candidates, inflation targeting, portfolio choice, volatility, yield curve disturbances and many others, currently debated in finance, macroeconomics and political economy. The International Conference on Finance and Banking at Silesian University in Karviná is a well established scientific event where the hottest issues in the financial scenario are analyzed from an international perspective.” — Marco Mazzoli, Associate Professor of Monetary and International Economics, Director of CESPEM, Università Cattolica del S. Cuore, Italy