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Factor proportions and international business cycles

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  • Jin, Keyu
  • Li, Nan

Abstract

Positive investment comovements across OECD economies as observed in the data are difficult to replicate in open-economy real business cycle models, but also vary substantially in degree for individual country-pairs. This paper shows that a two-country stochastic growth model that distinguishes sectors by factor intensity (capital-intensive vs. labor-intensive) gives rise to an endogenous channel of the international transmission of shocks that first, can substantially ameliorate the “quantity anomalies” that mark large open-economy models, and second, generate a cross-sectional prediction that is strongly supported by the data: investment correlations tend to be stronger for country-pairs that exhibit greater disparity in the factor-intensity of trade. In addition, three new pieces of evidence support the central mechanism: (1) the production composition of capital versus labor-intensive sectors changes over the business cycle; (2) the prices of capital-intensive goods and labor-intensive goods are respectively, procyclical and countercyclical; (3) a positive productivity shock in the U.S. tilts the composition of production towards capital-intensive sectors in other countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Jin, Keyu & Li, Nan, 2011. "Factor proportions and international business cycles," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 41946, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:41946
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    international business cycles; international comovement; composition effects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

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