Desynchronized: The Comovement of Non-Hydrocarbon Business Cycles in the GCC

Serhan Cevik

No 2011/286, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: This paper investigates the empirical characteristics of business cycles and the extent of cyclical comovement in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, using various measures of synchronization for non-hydrocarbon GDP and constituents of aggregate demand during the period 1990-2010. By applying the Christiano-Fitzgerald asymmetric band-pass filter and a mean corrected concordance index, the paper identifies the degree of non-hydrocarbon business cycle synchronization?one of the main prerequisites for countries considering to establish a monetary union. The empirical results show low and heterogeneous synchronization in non-hydrocarbon business cycles across the GCC economies, and a decline in the degree of synchronicity in the 2000s, if Kuwait is excluded from the sample, partly because of divergent fiscal policies.

Keywords: WP; GCC country; aggregate demand; Business cycles; business cycle synchronization; band-pass filter; concordance; GCC economy; Non-hydrocarbon business cycle frequency; business cycle analysis; pairwise correlation coefficients; business cycle desynchronization; Monetary unions; Private consumption; Government consumption; Public investment spending; Asia and Pacific; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25
Date: 2011-12-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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