This paper investigates the relationship between bilateral FDI positions and cross-country business cycle correlations in the period 1982–2001. We find that countries that have comparatively intensive FDI relations also have more synchronized business cycles during 1995–2001. Before 1995, we...

Foreign-owned firms account for a significant part of output in many industrialized countries. However, compared to international trade linkages, relatively little is known about the role of foreign direct investment linkages and multinational firm behavior in the transmission of disturbances...

This paper discusses a few interpretative issues arising from trend- cycle decompositions with correlated components. We determine the conditions under which correlated components may originate from: underestimation of the cyclical component; a cycle in growth rates, rather than in the levels;...

The paper is concerned with a class of trend cycle filters, encompassing popular ones, such as the Hodrick-Prescott filter, that are derived using the Wiener-Kolmogorov signal extraction theory under maintained models that prove unrealistic in applied time series analysis. As the maintained...

This paper assesses the information content of two survey indicators for consumption developments in the near future for eight European countries in the period 1985-1998. Empirical work on this topic typically focuses on consumer confidence, the perceptions of buyers of consumption goods. This...

We analyse the evolution of the business cycle in the accession countries, after a careful examination of the seasonal properties of the available series and the required modification of the cycle dating procedures. We then focus on the degree of cyclical concordance within the group of...

This paper examines the trade-off between exchange rate stability and monetary autonomy for a target zone. Using the guilder-mark target zone in the pre-EMU period as a case study, we empirically estimate how much policy discretion the Dutch central bank still enjoyed and how much had been ceded...