Sincronización de los ciclos económicos de Guatemala y sus principales socios comerciales

Abstract

Economists have always studied economic cycles, but it was until 1946 that these were formally defined. An economic cycle refers to the fluctuations in the economy as a result of contributions by the different actors conforming it at a determined moment. Its dynamic generates diverse characteristics such as economic booms and crises in the course of time. Among these characteristics economists have observed that in a globalized world such as today´s, the interaction and correlation amongst different countries as a result of their trade flows affects economic cycles, which has promoted the need to study their synchronization. This paper aims to determine the degree of synchronization amongst Guatemala´s most important trade partners in terms of their economic growth by applying a mathematical model. Once countries with a high degree of synchronization have been identified, we then can favour policies that increase our trade flow with them; whereas if their synchronization is low, we can search for incentives to improve it. Likewise, this focus seeks to reduce the use of value judgments by using a replicable algorithm. It concludes that by using this method, along with historical validations, we can determine an economic cycle and the degree of synchronization of the trade partners under study.