Production sharing and real business cycles in a small open economy

Production sharing and vertical specialization account for a significant share of trade between developed and developing countries. The Mexican maquiladora industry provides an ideal example of production sharing in a small open economy. The typical "maquila" imports most of its inputs from and exports all its output to the United States.> ; This article tries to determine to what extent production sharing, as in the Mexican maquiladora, can serve as a transmission mechanism of business cycles in small open economies. We utilize a simple two-sector small open economy model of real business cycles that incorporates production sharing in the traded sector. The transmission channel of business cycles is introduced in the model via demand shocks to the traded sector, originated in the United States' manufacturing sector. The model is successful in replicating real business cycles statistics for the maquiladora sector, as well as some of the characteristics of the nontraded sector.