Common Shocks, Common Dynamics, and the International Business Cycle

Abstract

This paper develops an econometric framework to understand whether co-movements observed in the international business cycle are the consequences of common shocks or common transmission mechanisms. Then we propose a new statistical measure of the importance of domestic and foreign shocks over the national business cycle. We show how to decompose the business cycle effects of permanent-transitory shocks into those due to their domestic and foreign components. We apply our analysis to G7 outputs.