This paper examines the importance of credit market shocks in driving global business cycles over the period 1988:1-2009:4. We first estimate common components in various macroeconomic and financial variables of the G-7 countries. We then evaluate the role played by credit market shocks using a...

This paper reviews the international business cycle among Group of Seven (G-7) countries since 1973 from two angles. An examination of business cycle synchronization among these countries using simple descriptive statistics shows that synchronized slowdowns have been the norm rather than the...

This paper analyzes the recent behavior of real exchange rates, the trade balance and the net foreign asset position of the United States in an intertemporal optimizing model of the world economy that incorporates heterogeneity across countries and imperfect international capital and good...