Dynamical analysis of the global business-cycle synchronization

The authors received support from Nova School of Business and Economics and from Banco de Portugal. Additional funding was received from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (UID/ECO/00124/2013 and Social Sciences DataLab, Project 22209), POR Lisboa (LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER-007722 and Social Sciences DataLab, Project 22209) and POR Norte (Social Sciences DataLab, Project 22209). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Data is available at World Bank national development indicators: http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators.This paper reports the dynamical analysis of the business cycles of 12 (developed and developing) countries over the last 56 years by applying computational techniques used for tackling complex systems. They reveal long-term convergence and country-level interconnections because of close contagion effects caused by bilateral networking exposure. Interconnectivity determines the magnitude of cross-border impacts. Local features and shock propagation complexity also may be true engines for local configuration of cycles. The algorithmic modeling proves to represent a solid approach to study the complex dynamics involved in the world economies.publishersversionpublishe