Economic Quarterly

This paper collects stylized facts about the cyclical properties of industry-level data. Those can provide a window into the sources of business cycles as well as propagation mechanisms. We find (i) goods that are more durable or that have higher wealth elasticity are more cyclical, (ii) sectors tied to the government tend to lag business cycles, (iii) sectors with nominal frictions tend to lag business cycles, (iv) sectors in which financial frictions are likely to be important tend to lag business cycles, and (v) industries that are highly integrated tend to lead business cycles.