Une analyse du cycle économique dans la caraïbe : le cas des pays anglophones

For decades, dating the business cycle has presented a major concern for businesspeople and policy makers all over the world and has led to the development of many statistical methodologies. However, only a few of these countries compile and publish an official chronology of the economic cycle. This paper adds to this sparse literature by investigating the business cycles of the three Caribbean nations of Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, the only islands in this geographical area for which databases with sufficiently high frequency are available over long periods. First, common methods are used to identify and develop a description of the main empirical features of the turning points of the business cycle and the growth cycle. Second, the focus is on comparing the phases of the cycles obtained for these three territories and to examine their synchronization with other countries. The results reveal that the three islands are characterized by generally divergent economic business cycles, as well as growth cycles. It is also observed that Caribbean cycles are highly synchronized with the cycles of the industrialized countries.