01889cas a2200241 a 4500 AALejournalIMF011439 230101c9999 xx r poo 0 0eng d 5.00 USD 9781463927202 1018-5941 BD-DhAAL BD-DhAAL Cevik, Serhan. Desynchronized : The Comovement of Non-Hydrocarbon Business Cycles in the GCC / Serhan Cevik. Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2011. 1 online resource (25 pages) IMF Working Papers <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students This paper investigates the empirical characteristics of business cycles and the extent of cyclical comovement in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, using various measures of synchronization for non-hydrocarbon GDP and constituents of aggregate demand during the period 1990-2010. By applying the Christiano-Fitzgerald asymmetric band-pass filter and a mean corrected concordance index, the paper identifies the degree of non-hydrocarbon business cycle synchronization?one of the main prerequisites for countries considering to establish a monetary union. The empirical results show low and heterogeneous synchronization in non-hydrocarbon business cycles across the GCC economies, and a decline in the degree of synchronicity in the 2000s, if Kuwait is excluded from the sample, partly because of divergent fiscal policies. Mode of access: Internet IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2011/286 Full text available on IMF http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2011/286/001.2011.issue-286-en.xml IMF e-Library