We investigate macroeconomic fluctuations in the Mediterranean, their similarities and convergence. A model with four indicators, roughly covering the West, the East and the Middle East and the North Africa portions of the Mediterranean, characterizes well the historical experience since the...

It has long been recognized that business cycle comovement is greater between countries that trade more intensively with one another. However, nations face shocks to both the cyclical and trend components of their GDP series. Contrary to the result for cyclical fluctuations, we find comovement...

This paper studies a two country model with traded and nontraded sectors, in which sector-specific capital goods, as in practice, are produced by combining inputs from all sectors. The model also includes nontraded distribution services employed in retailing traded goods to consumers. The...

This paper uses a panel structural vector autoregressive (VAR) model to investigate the extent to which global financial conditions, i.e., a global risk-free interest rate and global financial risk, and country spreads contribute to macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging countries. The main...

We study the effect of financial integration (through banks) on the transmission of international business cycles. In a sample of 18/20 developed countries between 1978 and 2009 we find that, in periods without financial crises, increases in bilateral banking linkages are associated with more...