9320935 Shea This research will investigate the source of comovements across various industries at business cycle frequencies. The important fact about business cycles in the United States is that different industries tend to experience expansions and contractions at the same time. Most industries do well simultaneously during a boom; conversely, most industries do poorly simultaneously during a recession. There are two potential explanations for such interindustry comovements. One explanation is that different industries tend to experience similar shocks.The second explanation is the existence of linkages or complementarities connecting different industries to each other. This research seeks to determine which types of complementarity, if any have been important sources of interindustry comovements in the postwar United States.The strategy adopted in the study is to compare the predictions of various linkage models to the actual pattern of employment and output comovement among one hundred and twenty six US manufacturing industries during the postwar period. The results from this study will help reveal the channels by which shocks are transmitted across sectors of the economy, and further our understanding of the causes of business cycles. ***
