Business Cycles and Seasonal Cycles in Bangladesh

The empirical regularities of the Bangladesh business and seasonal cycles are documented in this study. Spectrums, seasonality, volatility, cyclicality, and persistence in the level and variance of macroeconomic variables in Bangladesh are explored using monthly and quarterly macroeconomic series. Most of the features of U.S. and East-Southeast Asian business cycles are common to Bangladeshi business cycles; however, there are some differences. As is seen in the U.S. and European economies, seasonal cycles accentuate the features of business cycles in Bangladesh. To our surprise, the seasonal cycles in Bangladesh embody the features of business cycles in the U.S. and East-Southeast Asian economies more thoroughly than they do the business cycles in Bangladesh.

Simulating heterogeneous multinational firms

This paper develops a micro-simulation framework for multinational entry and sales activities across countries. The model is based on Eaton, Kortum, and Kramarz's (2010) quantitative trade model adapted towards multinational production. Using micro data on Japanese manufacturing firms, we first stylize the empirical regularities of multinational entry and sales activity and estimate the model's structural parameters with simulated method of moments. We then demonstrate that our adapted model is able to replicate important dimensions of the in-sample moments conditioned in our estimation strategy. Importantly, it is able to replicate activity under an economic period with a far different level of FDI barriers than was conditioned upon in our estimation sample. Overall, our research highlights the richness of the simulation framework for performing counterfactual analysis of various FDI policies.