This paper examines the duration and magnitude of commodity-price cycles. It finds that for most commodities, price slumps last longer than price booms. How far prices fall in a slump is found to be slightly larger than how far they rebound in a subsequent boom. There is little evidence of a...

This paper identifies and describes the key features of Australian business cycles during the period 1959-2002. In particular, we identify the chronologies in Australia's classical cycle (expansions and contractions in the level of output) and growth cycle (periods of above-trend and below-trend...

The paper examines the relationship between transitory terms-of-trade shocks and private saving. Using a model allowing for nonseparability between the consumption of tradables and nontradables, the paper estimates the intertemporal elasticity of substitution while accounting for the...

Since the Australian dollar was floated in December 1983, the Australian central bank (Reserve Bank of Australia) has actively intervened in the foreign exchange market. Using daily exchange rate and official intervention data from January 1984 to December 2001, this paper examines what effects,...

The Consumption Capital Asset Pricing Model (C-CAPM) is tested using data on equity prices in Jordan, Turkey, and Pakistan over the period 1986-93. The analysis is carried out in two steps. The parameters of agents dynamic consumption and investment decisions are first estimated, and then the...

This article examines the macroeconomic effects of the erosion of trade preferences, with a focus on the export of Caribbean bananas to Europe. Estimates are made of the magnitude of implicit assistance provided over a period of three decades to eastern Caribbean countries through banana trade...

This article develops country-specific vector autoregressive (VAR) models with block exogeneity restrictions to analyze how exogenous factors affect business cycles in the Eastern Caribbean. It finds that external shocks play a key role, explaining more than half of macroeconomic fluctuations in...

This paper examines the growth experience of 20 states of India during 1961-91, using cross-sectional estimation and the analytical framework of the Solow-Swan neoclassical growth model. We find evidence of absolute convergence--initially poor states grew faster than their initially rich...

This paper examines the growth experience of nine South Pacific countries during the period 1971-93, using the analytical framework of the Solow-Swan neoclassical growth model, panel data, and Chamberlain's Î-matrix estimator. The speed of convergence of South Pacific countries to their...