Trade Intensity and Business Cycle Synchronization among ECO Members

The purpose of this article is to study the relationship between the trade intensity and business cycle synchronization among ECO Members in 1993-2007 periods. For this purpose “The central country model with centrality of Iran” has been used. In order to investigate the asymmetry of the structure of production (ASP) between ECO members the specialization index has been applied. The results indicate that the bilateral trade intensity and the industrial asymmetries index ignorable impact on the business cycle synchronization among ECO Members. In order to investigate the effect of income and geographical distance among ECO Members a gravity model were used. The results reveals that the per capita income had a positive and significant impact on the bilateral trade intensity, while geographical distance had a negative effect.