Does International Asynchronization Matter for the U.S. Business Cycle? Technical Paper 2001-1

This paper proposes and investigates the "asynchronization hypothesis," which predicts that an asynchronized shock tends to have a stronger and longer effect on the U.S. business cycle than an internationally synchronized shock. The hypothesis finds empirical support in the impulse responses of U.S. output and inflation to synchronized and asynchronized shocks; those responses are estimated in a system of four-variable structural vector autoregression. It also finds support in stylized facts: the longest U.S. expansions have tended to occur when the rest of the world is growing below