Working Paper

States and the business cycle


Abstract: We model the U.S. business cycle using a dynamic factor model that identifies common factors underlying fluctuations in state-level income and employment growth. We find three such common factors, each of which is associated with a set of factor loadings that indicate the extent to which each state?s business cycle is related to the national business cycle. According to the factor loadings, there is a great deal of heterogeneity in the nature of the links between state and national economies. In addition to exhibiting interesting geographic patterns, the factor loadings tend to be related to differences in industry mix. Finally, we find that the common factors tend to explain large proportions of the total variability in state-level business cycles, although there is a great deal of cross-state heterogeneity.

Keywords: Business cycles;

Status: Published in Journal of Urban Economics, March 2009, 65(2), pp. 181-94

Access Documents

File(s): File format is application/pdf http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2007/2007-050.pdf

Authors

Bibliographic Information

Provider: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Part of Series: Working Papers

Publication Date: 2008

Number: 2007-050