A new paper in Economic Letters finds that the geographic distance between countries no longer predicts how closely their business cycles move together — a shift that began around 2000. Authors Schuyler Louie, Yoonseon Han and David Lindequist studied 60 years of GDP data across 70 countries and report that near‑instant communications and global supply chains have synchronized national cycles. From 1960–1999 business cycles were strongly localized; after 2000, the link between proximity and economic correlation weakened materially. The authors measured economic covariance and found that for the past two decades distance has had no statistically significant effect on co‑movement. The paper points to trade integration and instantaneous information flows as likely drivers. For university researchers and economics departments, the findings affect empirical work on contagion, international macro modeling and policy coordination. The result suggests curricula and research agendas should account for more globally correlated shocks and reconsider distance‑based identification strategies.