We show that internationalised production, modelled as trade in intermediate goods, brings the dynamics of a small open economy closer to that observed in the data. We build a stylized new-Keynesian small open economy model and we show that when production is internationalised, movements of international relative prices affect the economy through an additional channel, denoted as the “cost channel”. Both qualitatively and quantitatively, this channel (i) increases the share of output variance explained by foreign shocks, consistent with empirical evidence, (ii) implies that the exchange rate pass-through is closer to estimated values, and (iii) increases the international correlation of output relative to that of consumption.
Eyquem, Aurélien and Güneş Kamber (2014). ‘A note on the business cycle implications of trade in intermediate goods’, Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, Volume 18(5), Pages 1172-1186, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1365100512000892.