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The Shifts in Lead-Lag Properties of the US Business Cycle

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Abstract

We document shifts in the lead-lag properties of the US business cycle since the mid- 1980s. Specifically, (i) the well-known inverted-leading-indicator-property of real interest rates has completely vanished; (ii) labour productivity switched from positively leading to negatively lagging output and labour inputs over the cycle; and (iii) the unemployment rate shifted from lagging productivity negatively to leading positively. Many contemporary business cycle models produce counterfactual cross-correlations revealing that popular frictions and shocks provide an incomplete account of business cycle comovement. Determining the underlying sources of these shifts in the lead-lag properties is therefore a promising direction for future research.

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  • Joshua Brault & Hashmat Khan, 2018. "The Shifts in Lead-Lag Properties of the US Business Cycle," Carleton Economic Papers 18-03, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 01 Mar 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:car:carecp:18-03
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    2. Hashmat Khan & Jean-François Rouillard & Santosh Upadhayaya, 2019. "Consumer Confidence and Household Investment," Carleton Economic Papers 19-06, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 04 Jan 2024.
    3. Dionysios Chionis & Fotios Mitropoulos & Antonios Sarantidis, 2021. "Business cycles and macroeconomic asymmetries: New evidence from Eurozone and European countries," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 5977-5996, October.
    4. Guido Ascari & Qazi Haque & Leandro M. Magnusson & Sophocles Mavroeidis, 2024. "Empirical evidence on the Euler equation for investment in the US," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 543-563, June.
    5. Mitra, Aruni, 2024. "The productivity puzzle and the decline of unions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    6. Elena Deryugina & Alexey Ponomarenko, 2021. "Explaining the lead–lag pattern in the money–inflation relationship: a microsimulation approach," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 1113-1128, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business Cycles; Cross-Correlations; DSGE Models; Interest Rates; Productivity; Hours; Employment; Unemployment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects

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