INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS OF CATTLE CYCLES

The time-series properties of cattle production in three countries wit h different technologies, Argentina, the United States, and Uruguay, a re studied in order to shed light on the role of technology in the dyn amics of the cattle sector. Four series are analyzed for each country, slaughter, price, stock of cows, and total herd. Spectral decompositi on of the time series shows the existence of cycles having surprising regularity for all the four time series. The three countries exhibit v ery similar cyclicities in spite of their different technologies and e conomic environment.