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)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007), results show that regional disparities exhibit a pro-cyclical behaviour and that the underlying long-run tendency is towards divergence. ConvergenceRegional Dans une large mesure, la documentation actuelle sur la convergence ne tient pas compte de l'effet des fluctuations globales sur le développement des inégalités de revenu. Cependant, si les inégalités régionales présentent des tendances cycliques très nettes à court terme, il faut déterminer la période à étudier avec prudence afin d'éviter des résultats erronés. En analysant la convergence à partir de quarante-huit états contigus aux États-Unis par moyen de la façon dynamiques de distribution, on montre que ces résultats erronés pourraient s'avérer assez importants. En outre, quand on analyse la convergence sur une période appropriée qui ne comprend que des cycles économiques complets (entre 1987 et 2007), les résultats laissent voir que les inégalités régionales présentent un comportement procyclique et que la tendance sous-jacente à long terme est à la divergence. KonvergenzRegionale Disparitäten Geschäftszyklus Distributionsdynamik MAGRINI S., GEROLIMETTO M. y ENGIN DURAN H. Convergencia regional y el ciclo comercial agregado en los Estados Unidos, Regional Studies. En la actual bibliografía sobre la convergencia se ignora en gran medida el efecto de las fluctuaciones agregadas en lo que respecta a la evolución de las desigualdades de ingresos. Sin embargo, si las desigualdades regionales siguen a corto plazo un Regional Studies, 2015 Vol. 49, No. 2, 251-272, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2013 © 2013 Regional Studies Association http://www.regionalstudies.org patrón cíclico destacado, habría que elegir el periodo de análisis con sumo cuidado para evitar distorsiones en los resultados. Al examinar la convergencia entre cuarenta y ocho Estados limítrofes de los Estados Unidos mediante un enfoque sobre las dinámicas de distribución, demostramos que estas desigualdades podrían ser bastante considerables. Además, si analizamos la convergencia de un periodo apropiado incluyendo solamente ciclos completos (1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007), los resultados in...

TurkeyDissimilar economic fluctuations and asymmetric shocks across the regions of a country might create severe policy distortions that, under these circumstances, aggregate policy interventions (such as taxation and interest rates), are likely to be sub-optimal for at least a fraction of the regions. For instance, monetary policy can hardly satisfy the needs of all regions when some of the regions are experiencing a boom while others are in a recession phase. For these reasons, similarity of regional business cycles and their convergence are highly desirable from a policy viewpoint. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to provide empirical evidence and policy implications in that context. In particular, I analyze business cycle correlations across Turkish provinces and the tendency of these cycles to converge over the period of analysis between 1975-2000 and 2004-2008 (for Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics [NUTS]-2 regions). I find that regional business cycle asymmetries have tended to decrease in recent decades. This result, although it seems to provide evidence in favor of rising correlations, shows that the convergence process is rather slow and there still exist asymmetries across the regional business cycles.

Since the 1990s, the issue of regional income convergence and its long-term tendencies has been thoroughly and heatedly discussed. Much 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. First, 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 1) these movements are pro-or counter-cyclical,2) the cyclical evolution of the disparities is a consequence of differences in the timing with which the business cycle is felt in 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 U.S. states between 1969 and 2008. Our results indicate that income disparities do not move randomly in the short run but follow a distinct cyclical pattern, moving either pro-or counter-cyclically depending on the period of analysis. These patterns are probably explained by the changes in the direction of capital and labor flows that favor developed or poorer states in different periods. As for the underlying mechanism, it appears that the short-run evolution of the disparities in recent years is largely a consequence of differences in the timing with which the business cycle is felt across states rather than the outcome of amplitude differences across local cyclical swings.

The aim of the present article is to investigate the economic determinants of the synchronization across regional business cycles in Turkey between 1975 and 2010. The vast majority of studies in this field have concentrated on well-known determinants, such as inter-regional trade, financial integration, and industrial specialization, while largely ignoring spatial and geographical factors, including differences across regions in agglomeration, localization economies, market size, and urbanization. In this article, we incorporate these variables into our analysis and evaluate their roles in the comovement of regional business cycles. Our findings indicate two major results: first, low degree of synchronization during 1975-2000 has switched to relatively more correlated and synchronously moving regional cycles during 2004-2010. Second, having tested the variety of determinants, we find that the pairs of regions that have more similar industrial structure and market size, trade integration, and arbitrary degree of agglomeration and urbanization tend to synchronize more. Significance of these variables is robustly evident regardless of the time period analyzed and of the type of methodology employed

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.

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.

Since the 1990s, the issue of regional income convergence and its long term tendencies has been thoroughly and heatedly discussed. Much 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 in 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 U.S. states between 1969 and 2008.

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