The paper uses a partial equilibrium model to simulate times series on inputs utilization rates--capital utilization and labor effort--for 10 OECD countries. The resulting series are filtered from standard measures of the Solow residual. The main findings are as follows: once variable inputs...

This paper examines the characteristics of business cycles in and across Sweden and Finland during the postwar period. We find that output fluctuations in Sweden and Finland are highly correlated to two measures of the international business cycle, a European and a non-European common business...

The sources of macroeconomic fluctuations in sub-Saharan African are examined by comparing the CFA franc countries with the non-CFA franc countries. External shocks, especially terms of trade shocks, appear to have a greater influence on fluctuations of output and the real exchange rate in CFA...

This paper studies the business cycle in Germany using the HP-filter (Hodrick/Prescott (1997)) to isolate the cyclical component. A two-country International Business Cycle model in line with Baxter/Crucini (1995) is built to explain these facts. The combination of GHH-preferences with taste...

This paper reviews the evidence on the sources of business cycles within and across countries and the implications for the importance of borders in business cycles. A simple econometric model is presented and applied to within-U.S. and cross-country data in order to provide a framework for...

Identifying business cycle stylised facts is essential as these often form the basis for the construction and validation of theoretical business cycle models. Furthermore, understanding the cyclical patterns in economic activity, and their causes, is important to the decisions of both...

A floating exchange rate combined with a clear inflation target can be a powerful stabilizer even if there are fluctuations in exchange rates that are unrelated to current fundamentals. Under plausible conditions, most of the stabilisation will occur through the exchange rate, and fundamental...

This paper studies the relative performance of alternative monetary policy rules in the presence of oil price shocks in a small open economy optimizing model. Our analysis shows that it is important to distinguish between alternative price indices (CPI, core CPI, and GDP deflator) when modeling...