Evidence of the North-South business cycle
This article examines the economic fluctuations of two
regional economies: the developed, industrial goods
exporting countries of the world (which I call .North.)
and the developing, non-fuel commodity exporting
countries (or .South.). My principal objective is to
document the salient features of their business cycles
from 1970 to 1995. I frame the discussion around two
questions. The first question is whether these very
different regions share similar business cycle characteristics.
The second question is whether there is an
international business cycle, in other words, whether
cyclical fluctuations in one region are positively correlated
with cyclical fluctuations in the other.