By force of demand: Explaining international comovements

This paper explores the possibility that economic fluctuations may be largely demand-driven. It is shown that the stylized open-economy business cycle regularities documented by Feldstein and Horioka [1980. The Economic Journal 90 (June), 314-329] and Backus et al., [1992. Journal of Political Economy 100 (4), 745-775] can be explained by demand shocks alone even in a standard general equilibrium model. Frictions such as market incompleteness, increasing returns to scale, and sticky prices do not appear to be the preconditions for resolving these long-standing puzzles.