Ciclos econômicos, comércio e custos de uniões monetárias: evidências para a América do Sul

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between bilateral trade and the business cycles for a sample of ten Latin American countries. It is shown that countries displaying high volumes of bilateral trade also present more correlated economic cycles. It follows that even if a monetary union is considered ex ante undesirable due to the need of tayloring monetary responses in a very idiosyncratic fashion, it may nevertheless prove optimal ex post when GDPs syncronization become higher.