This paper examines the issue of international synchronization of cycles. Using spectral methods we analyze the pattern of co-movement (coherences) of growth rate cycles between countries across frequency bands and overtime. We also examine the lead-lag structure (phase shifts) of country cycles...

There has been considerable debate in recent years about whether well-defined business cycles even exist. At one extreme are those who assert that so-called business cycles are caused by exogenous shocks. At the other extreme are those who believe that business cycles may be endogenous, i.e.,...

By applying spectral analysis, this paper discovered that: (1) bond, equity, and commodity markets followed regular cyclical patterns of the business cycle that lasted 3.5 to 7.5years; (2) four significant lead or lag relationships existed between the business cycle and the three markets, where...

In the time domain, the observed cyclical behavior of the real wage hides a range of economic influences that give rise to cycles of differing lengths and strengths. This may serve to produce a distorted picture of wage cyclicality. Here, we deploy frequency domain methods that allow us to asses...

Among the various methods used to identify the business cycle from aggregate data, the Hodrick-Prescott filter has become an industry standard – it ‘identifies’ the business cycle by removing low-frequency information, thereby smoothing the data. Since the filter’s inception in 1980, the...

A variety of filters that are commonly employed by econometricians are analysed with a view to determining their effectiveness in extracting well-defined components of economic data sequences. These components can be defined in terms of their spectral structures—i.e. their frequency...