This paper examines the effects of trade costs on macroeconomic volatility. We first construct a dynamic, two-country general equilibrium model, where the degree of market integration depends directly on trade costs (transport costs, tariffs, etc.). The model is a extension of Obstfeld and...

This paper develops an aggregation procedure using time-varying weights for constructing the common component of international economic fluctuations. The methodology for deriving time-varying weights is based on some stylized features of the data documented in the paper. The model allows for a...

Recent empirical research finds that pairs of countries with stronger trade linkages tend to have more highly correlated business cycles. We assess whether the standard international business cycle framework can replicate this intuitive result. We employ a three-country model with transportation...

This paper provides a quantitative exploration of international spillovers of macroeconomic shocks among the major industrial economies. The particular topical example analyzed here concerns the possible effects on the industrial economies of adverse shocks to the current U.S. economic...

This paper analyzes the role of nonseparable utility and nontradables in business cycles and portfolio choice. I find that nonseparability in utility can change the portfolio choice significantly. Unlike previous results in literature, the optimal portfolio of the traded-good sector equities is...

Countries that trade more with each other exhibit higher business cycle correlation. This paper examines the mechanisms underlying this relationship using a large cross-country industry-level panel dataset of manufacturing production and trade. We show that sector pairs that experience more...

The paper investigates the determinants of business cycles synchronization across regions. It uses both international and intranational data to evaluate the linkages between trade in goods, trade in financial assets, specialization and business cycles synchronization using a system of...

We propose using a Bayesian time-varying coefficient model estimated with Markov chain-Monte Carlo methods to measure contagion empirically. The proposed measure works in the joint presence of heteroskedasticity and omitted variables and does not require knowledge of the timing of the crisis. It...

Empirically, output and asset returns are highly positively correlated across the United States and the other major industrialized countries. Standard business cycle models that assume flexible prices and wages, in the Real Business Cycle tradition, have great difficulties explaining this fact....