Sunspots and the business cycle

Do Sunspots Produce Business Cycles?

I compare the canonical sunspots and real business cycle models of aggregate fluctuations. The sunspots model, distinguished by production externalities, is better able to reproduce the typical spectral shape of growth rates found in the data. However, it generates excessive investment volatility and overstates high frequency behavior in employment, investment and output series. The introductio...

Business Cycle Features In The Iranian Economy

Skin Cancer, Irradiation, and Sunspots: The Solar Cycle Effect

Skin cancer is diagnosed in more than 2 million individuals annually in the United States. It is strongly associated with ultraviolet exposure, with melanoma risk doubling after five or more sunburns. Solar activity, characterized by features such as irradiance and sunspots, undergoes an 11-year solar cycle. This fingerprint frequency accounts for relatively small variation on Earth when compar...

Bank Lending Behaviour over the Business Cycle in Iran

This paper studies bank loans over the business cycles in Iran to determine the role of Iranian banks in stabilizing credit. By estimating the long-run relations using dynamic OLS and fully modified OLS estimators, the findings show that real bank lending is positively related to real GDP in the long-run providing evidences of the pro-cyclicality of bank lending in Iran. Hence, Iranian banking ...

Analysis of the Relationship between the Business Cycle and Inflation Gap in Time-Frequency Domain

Controlling the business cycle and minimizing the inflation gap are considered as two major goals for monetary policy. Hence, the policymaker will be able to make more decisive decisions with an awareness of the dynamic relationship and causal relationship between these two variables. Accordingly, the present study uses a discrete and continuous wavelet transform to provide a new understanding ...