Gdp growth rates in the dollar currency area

El Salvador:

2006: 2.8%, 2007: 4.2%, 2008: 4.7%, 2009: 2.5%, 2010: -2.3% (estimated)

Panama:

2006: 6.4%, 2007: 8.1%, 2008: 11.2%, 2009: 9.2%, 2010: 2.4% (estimated)

Ecuador: 2006: 4.7%, 2008: 2.0%, 2009: 6.5%, 2010: -1.0%

Those countries, of course, all use the U.S. dollar.  Does that look more like how a real shock is transmitted or an AD shock?

I don't think there is a simple answer to that question.  U.S. data are here and the large plunge is from January 2008 to January 2009, with the Latin slowdowns in the dollar area coming later.

In 2009 the El Salvador inflation rate ran over seven percent.  In Panama it ran over four percent in 2008 and almost nine percent in 2009.  Ecuador has 2.3 and 8.3 inflation for those two years.

In those countries one can see a lot of expansionary nominal demand, followed by a major slowdown, most of which is probably fallout from the broader U.S. and global crisis, with some lag.  That fits the real shock story.  To defend the nominal story, start by noting how little those countries share a common inflation rate, either with the U.S. or with each other.  (But that may itself stem from real factors driving the production of inside money and the Fed not mattering so much.)  Maybe they never received the U.S. negative nominal shock to such a strong degree or maybe the U.S. negative nominal shock came more from the wealth side than from the monetary policy side.

Still I am drawn back to the question: if it was the Fed which screwed up, why is there such a lag across the currency zone but not across the U.S. states?