Co-movement of Australian State business cycles (journal article)

by David Norman and Thomas Walker

from Australian Economic Papers Vol. 46 No. 4, December 2007, pp. 360-374

"We use a variety of techniques to examine the nature and degree of co-movement among Australian state business cycles. Consistent with the results of Dixon and Shepherd (2001), we find that these cycles move quite closely together, with particularly strong links between the cycles of the larger states. ... Our model implies that the major source of this co-movement in state activity is the commonality of shocks affecting state cycles. In contrast, spillovers of region-specific shocks appear to play only a minor role in creating co-movement, though region-specific shocks themselves have a moderate influence on cyclical fluctuations."