International Comparisons of Cattle Cycles

Abstract

Abstract The time‐series properties of cattle production in three countries with different technologies, Argentina, the United States, and Uruguay, are studied in order to shed light on the role of technology in the dynamics of the cattle sector. Four series are analyzed for each country, slaughter, price, stock of cows, and total herd. Spectral decomposition of the time series shows the existence of cycles having surprising regularity for all the four time series. The three countries exhibit very similar cyclicities in spite of their different technologies and economic environment.