Hasan Engin Duran

Business cycle dynamics across the US states

Abstract The analysis of synchronization among regional or national business cycles has recently been attracting a growing interest within the economic literature. Far less attention has instead been devoted to a closely related issue: given a certain level of synchronization, some economies might be systematically ahead of others along the swings of the business cycle. We analyze this issue within a system of economies and show that leading (or lagging behind) is a feature that does not occur at random across the economies. In addition, we investigate the economic drivers that could explain this behavior. To do so, we employ data for 48 conterminous US states between 1990 and 2009.

Short-Run Dynamics of Income Disparities and Regional Cycle Synchronization

Since the 1990s, the issue of regional income convergence and its long term tendencies has been thoroughly and heatedly discussed. Far less attention, however, has been devoted to the short-run dynamics of regional convergence. In particular, three important aspects have not yet been adequately addressed. Firstly, it is indeed essential to understand whether regional disparities manifest a tendency to move systematically along the national cycle. Then, if this happens to be the case, it becomes crucial to know whether: i. these movements are pro- or counter-cyclical, ii. the cyclical evolution of the disparities is a consequence of differences in the timing with which the business cycle is felt across regions or it is motivated by the amplitude differences across local cyclical swings. In this paper, we shed light on these issues using data on personal income for the 48 coterminous US states between 1969 and 2008.

Regional Convergence and Aggregate Business Cycle in the United States

Magrini S., Gerolimetto M. and Engin Duran H. Regional convergence and aggregate business cycle in the United States, Regional Studies. The existing literature on convergence largely ignores the effect of aggregate fluctuations on the evolution of income disparities. However, if regional disparities follow a distinct cyclical pattern in the short run, the period of analysis should be chosen with great care to avoid distortions in the results. By analysing convergence among forty-eight conterminous US states through the distribution dynamics approach, it is shown that these distortions could be quite sizeable. Moreover, when convergence is analysed over an appropriate period that includes only complete cycles (1989–2007), results show that regional disparities exhibit a pro-cyclical behaviour and that the underlying long-run tendency is towards divergence.

Understanding the Lead/Lag Structure Among Regional Business Cycles

The analysis of synchronization among regional or national business cycles has recently been attracting a growing interest within the economic literature. Far less attention has instead been devoted to a closely related issue: given a certain level of synchronization, some economies might be systematically ahead of others along the swings of the business cycle. In other words, there could be a lead/lag structure in which some economies systematically lead or lag behind others. In the present paper we aim at providing a thorough analysis of the lead/lag structure among a system of regional economies. This task is achieved in two steps. First, we show that leading (or lagging behind) is a feature that does not occur at random across the economies. Second, we investigate the economic drivers that could explain such a behavior. To do so, we employ data for 48 conterminous US states between 1979 and 2010.

Distortions in Cross-Sectional Convergence Analysis when the Aggregate Business Cycle is Incomplete

One of the most important drawbacks of the existing literature on convergence is that it largely ignores the effect of aggregate fluctuations on the evolution of income disparities. To the extent that regional income disparities follow a distinct cyclical pattern in the short-run, moving either pro- or counter-cyclically, the period of analysis should be chosen with great care. Failing to do so might in fact lead to an overestimation of the tendency towards either convergence or divergence, depending on the type of short-run cyclical pattern followed by the disparities and on which cycle phases are over-represented within the period being analyzed. In this paper, we use the distribution dynamics approach to show that the distortion introduced when the period of analysis contains incomplete business cycles could be quite sizeable and then analyze convergence among 48 conterminous US states over a appropriately chosen period (1989-2007) that includes only complete cycles.

Determinants of co-movement and of lead and lag behavior of business cycles in the Eurozone

Abstract In this paper we study business cycle correlations in the Eurozone and its determinants. Additionally, we also analyze the determinants of the lead and lag behavior of business cycles in the Eurozone. We explore the relevance, in the Eurozone context, using GDP and employment as the business cycle measures, of the determinants of business cycle synchronization identified in the literature, namely bilateral trade intensity, dissimilarity of labor market rigidity, dissimilarity in industrial structures, financial openness, and foreign direct investment relations. We estimate a simultaneous 4-equations model by Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and three-stage least square to investigate empirically the above-mentioned determinants of business cycle correlation. Bilateral trade relations present a positive influence on business cycle correlations, while the dissimilarity of labor market rigidity presents a negative influence. The rest of the above-mentioned variables are non-significant. These results are robust to the use of the Hodrick–Prescott-filter and first differences as the de-trending methods, as well as the use of GDP as the business cycle measure, excluding the financial crisis years (2008 and 2009). Results for employment as the business cycle measure are in contrast with the previous ones, and found industrial dissimilarity to be the relevant variable to determine business cycles synchronization. In what concerns the determinants of the lead and lag behavior, results show that the member states of the Eurozone that usually lead the cycle are the ones that are wealthier, with strict employment legislation, more specialized in construction and finance sectors, and more prone to international capital movements. Differences in the determinants between contemporaneous business cycles and lead and lag behavior of business cycles are especially important for policy-makers in the Eurozone to know about, in particular if asymmetric shocks between countries are set in place.

Inflation Differentials across Regions in Turkey

Abstract The aim of the present article is to analyze the convergence of regional inflation rates in Turkey from 2004 to 2015 by adopting sigma convergence and distribution dynamics approaches. The outcomes of our research can be summarized in two groups. First, inflation disparities tend to decline over time, especially during the post-crisis period after 2010. Hence, the aggregate price stabilization and disinflation process in Turkey is coupled with convergence in inflation rates across regions. Second, in addition to the findings in the literature, we find that regions change their relative inflation rate positions quite often. This indicates that regional inflation behavior is random and non-structural, as the relatively high and low inflationary places tend to change their quintiles frequently. The results imply several policy suggestions. First, achieving inflation convergence is a harder task than initially understood, as it seems to show random behavior. Second, trade integration can be an option to foster regional price convergence.