Searching for the source of macroeconomic integration across advanced economies

This paper estimates a two-country open economy DSGE model by using U.S. and Euro Area data. The baseline model, where the two regions are linked only through the trade of goods and risk-free bonds, fails to replicate the high cross-regional macro-economic correlation in the data. I search for the determinants of this correlation by reconfiguring the model?s shock processes in two ways. First, I include shocks that symmetrically affect each region. Second I allow for the transmission of shocks between the two regions. While both of these changes considerably improve the model?s per-formance along the international dimension, common shocks appear to be the main drivers of cross-regional correlation. Under both speci?cations, comovements of variables are mostly determined by demand and ?nancial shocks. Productivity, cost-push and exchange rate shocks, by contrast, play a limited role.