Volatility of the Tradeable and Non-Tradeable Sectors: Theory and evidence

This paper investigates the business cycle fluctuations of the tradeable and nontradeable sectors of the US economy. Then, it evaluates whether a “New Open Economy” model having prices sticky in the producer’s currency can reproduce the observed fluctuations qualitatively. The answer is positive: the model-implied standard deviations are consistent with the pattern in the data. In particular, tradeable output is more volatile than nontradeable output. A key role in generating this result is played by the greater responsiveness of tradeable output to monetary shocks. Parameter estimates are obtained by Generalised Method of Moments.