Amplify Business Cycles Research Articles

The Emission-Reduction Effect of Green Demand Preference in Carbon Market and Macro-Environmental Policy: A DSGE Approach

Along with the new stage of prevention and control of the COVID-19 pandemic and the vision and goals of combatting climate change, the challenges of the transition to a green economy have become more severe. The need for green recovery of the economy, stability and security of energy production and consumption, and the coordination of low-carbon transformation and socio-economic development has become increasingly urgent. This paper proposes a new theoretical framework to study the effect of carbon emission reduction on the mutual application of the carbon market, fiscal policy and monetary policy under the non-homothetic preference of energy product consumption. By constructing an environmental dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (E-DSGE) model with residents’ non-homothetic preferences, this paper finds that coordinating the carbon market and macroeconomic policies can achieve economic and environmental goals. However, the transmission paths for each are different. The carbon market influences producers’ abatement efforts and costs through carbon prices. Monetary policy controls carbon emissions by adjusting interest rates, while fiscal policy controls carbon emissions by adjusting total social demand. Improving non-homothetic preferences will amplify business cycle fluctuations caused by exogenous shocks, thus assuming the role of a “financial accelerator”. Further research shows that non-homothetic preferences influence the heterogeneity of different policy mixes. Finally, this paper discovers that the welfare effects, the relative size and difference of long-term and short-term effects resulting from the different policy mixes, also depend on the level of non-homothetic preferences. The intertemporal substitution mechanism due to the improvement of non-homothetic preferences endows low-carbon production with “option” characteristics. Our study reveals the role of non-homothetic preferences on the effectiveness of policy implementation. It highlights the importance of matching monetary and fiscal policies with the carbon market based on the consumption and production side. It provides ideas for policy practice to achieve the goal of “dual carbon” and promoting coordinated socio-economic development.

Misalignments in house prices and economic growth in Europe

ABSTRACT In this paper we investigate house price misalignments and how they affect the real economy. We estimate the long-term relationship between house prices and the fundamentals that determine long-term house prices for a panel of European countries with dynamic OLS, using data from 2005–2018. We find that income has been the main driver of fundamental house prices in all countries, while the supply of dwellings has calmed the rise in house prices in some of them. We calculate house price misalignments, which are deviations of house prices from the fundamental value, and we employ them in the growth model. The results of the growth regression indicate that house price imbalances amplify business cycles in the short term, but in the long term house price overvaluations slow economic growth down. The findings imply that it is crucial to take measures to stabilize housing cycles.

Is bank liquidity creation procyclical? Evidence from the US

This paper examines how bank liquidity creation reacts to business cycle fluctuations. Using panel data on US banks, we find that bank liquidity creation is procyclical (i.e., banks create more liquidity during economic expansions and less liquidity during recessions). We also find that both on- and off-balance sheet liquidity creation are procyclical. Our results hold across bank size groups, and suggest that bank liquidity creation can amplify business cycle fluctuations.

Multi-product firms and increasing marginal costs

Recent literature has addressed how product creation amplifies economic fluctuations via the love of variety. Yet, the empirical evidence on variety effects is sparse. The current paper demonstrates that decreasing returns in the variety-level production technology, which leads to increasing marginal costs, similarly amplify business cycles. Product scope expansions reduce marginal costs and firms have an incentive to produce multiple products even if the variety effects are entirely absent. The efficiency gains from adjusting product scopes makes the economy more susceptible to sunspot equilibria. The indeterminate model is estimated via Bayesian methods and data favors the multi-product structure with animal spirits explaining a significant fraction of U.S. business cycles.

Search for yield and business cycles

In the ultra-low interest rate environment after the financial crisis, it has been often pointed out that the “search for yield” behavior of financial institutions might have been intensifying interest rate decreases. One hypothesis to explain search for yield is that banks try to buy longer-term bonds even when they recognize negative term premiums in long-term rates because they myopically care about current portfolio income, not just expected holding-period returns. I study the potential impacts of this behavior on U.S. business cycles and long-term bond’s ex-post term premiums. I find that in an economy in which banks are exposed to the value-at-risk constraint, the existence of these myopic banks provides realistic moments of ex-post term premiums. In addition, their existence could generate higher output persistence under a productivity shock compared to an economy without them. This is because the difference between a myopic long-term bond pricing and a realized deposit rate path affects banks’ net worth. I study policy implications, too. In response to changes in the strength of banks’ capital regulation, the existence of myopic banks amplifies business cycles. Regarding monetary policy, it is necessary to consider ex-post term premiums, because ex-post term premiums tend to move in the same direction as the short-term interest rate and amplify business cycles in that direction when myopic banks exist.

Jobs and Matches: Quits, Replacement Hiring, and Vacancy Chains and Vacancy Chains

In the canonical DMP model of job openings, all job openings stem from new job creation. Jobs denote worker-firm matches, which are destroyed following worker quits. Yet, employers classify 56 percent of vacancies as quit-driven replacement hiring into old jobs, which evidently outlived their previous matches. Accordingly, aggregate and firm-level hiring tightly track quits. We augment the DMP model with longer-lived jobs arising from sunk job creation costs and replacement hiring. Quits trigger vacancies, which beget vacancies through replacement hiring. This vacancy chain can raise total job openings and net employment. The procyclicality of quits can thereby amplify business cycles. (JEL E24, E32, J23, J31, J63)

Can households see into the future? Survey evidence from the Netherlands

This paper presents new evidence on the expectation formation process from a Dutch household survey. Households become too optimistic about their future income after their income has improved, consistent with the overextrapolation of their experience. We show that this effect of experience is persistent and that households overextrapolate income losses more than income gains. Furthermore, older households overextrapolate more, suggesting that they did not learn over time to form more accurate expectations. Finally, we study the relationship between expectation errors and consumption. We find that more overoptimistic households intend to consume more and subsequently report higher consumption, even though they do not consume as much as they intended to. These results suggest that overextrapolation hurts consumers and amplifies business cycles.

Does oligopolistic banking friction amplify small open economy's business cycles? Evidence from Australia

This paper studies financial friction arising from oligopolistic bank competition and its impacts on a small open economy's business cycles by applying imperfect competition and endogenous firm entry theory. Using Australian data, the estimated model implies a countercyclical mark up in lending rate that varies inversely with number of banks. Such bank sector has a distinct shock propagation mechanism that often amplifies business cycles, depending on the type of shock. Balance sheet effects appear different compared to competitive banks, due to strategic bank behaviour. Unlike previous estimated small open economy general equilibrium studies, the model can capture substantial international transmissions.

Economic migration and business cycles in a small open economy with matching frictions

With the free movement of labour in Europe, economic migration has become an important determinant of labour supply. Cyclical migration exceeds one percent of the population in many countries and affects (un)employment and wage setting. The main contribution of this paper is that it models migration as an endogenous decision in a search-and-matching framework, where labour market institutions play an important role. It shows that, contrary to typical beliefs, migration can amplify business cycles. After a positive shock to the economy, immigration increases the labour force and initially unemployment. The latter reduces a worker's outside option in wage negotiations, resulting in a lower wage increase than when there is no migration. With cheaper labour firms post more job vacancies, which increases the probability that unemployed workers find jobs and attracts new workers to immigrate. Attenuated response of wages and the stronger response of employment to shocks result in a flatter Phillips curve.

Does Oligopolistic Banking Friction Amplify Small Open Economyys Business Cycles?: Evidence From Australia

This paper studies financial friction arising from oligopolistic bank competition and its impacts on small open economy’s business cycles by applying imperfect competition and endogenous firm entry theory. Using Australian data, the estimated model implies a counter-cyclical mark up in lending rate that varies inversely with number of banks. Such bank sector has a distinct shock propagation mechanism that often amplifies business cycles, depending on the type of shock. Balance sheet effects appear different compared to competitive banks, due to strategic bank behavior. Unlike previous estimated small open economy general equilibrium studies, the model can capture substantial international transmissions.

Cyclicality of bank liquidity creation

This paper investigates the cyclicality of bank liquidity creation. Since liquidity creation is a major economic function of banks, their liquidity creation behavior may amplify business cycle fluctuations. Using the methodology of Berger and Bouwman (2009) to compute liquidity creation measures, we analyze the relation between GDP growth and liquidity creation of Russian banks from 2004 to 2015. Detailed quarterly data on a very large sample of banks and coexistence of different bank ownership types (state-owned, domestic private and foreign banks), makes Russia an ideal natural laboratory for study of cyclicality of liquidity creation for banks. We find that liquidity creation of banks is procyclical. We show that the liquidity creation behavior of state-owned banks and foreign-owned banks is similar to that of domestic private banks in terms of procyclicality. We further find that the magnitude of procyclicality is higher for liquidity creation than for lending. Thus, while ownership of banks does not influence the cyclicality of bank liquidity creation, liquidity creation behavior of banks can amplify business cycle fluctuations.

Can Households See into the Future? Survey Evidence from the Netherlands

This paper presents new evidence on the expectation formation process from a Dutch household survey. Households become too optimistic about their future income after their income has improved, consistent with the over-extrapolation of their experience. We show that this effect of experience is persistent and that households over-extrapolate income losses more than income gains. Furthermore, older households over-extrapolate more, suggesting that they did not learn over time to form more accurate expectations. Finally, we study the relationship between expectation errors and consumption. We find that more over-optimistic households intend to consume more and subsequently report higher consumption, even though they do not consume as much as they intended to. These results suggests that overextrapolation hurts consumers and amplify business cycles.

Cyclicality of Bank Liquidity Creation

This paper investigates the cyclicality of bank liquidity creation. Since liquidity creation is a major economic function of banks, their liquidity creation behavior may amplify business cycle fluctuations. Using the methodology of Berger and Bouwman (2009) to compute liquidity creation measures, we analyze the relation between GDP growth and liquidity creation of Russian banks from 2004 to 2015. Detailed quarterly data on a very large sample of banks and coexistence of different bank ownership types (state-owned, domestic private and foreign banks), makes Russia an ideal natural laboratory for study of cyclicality of liquidity creation for banks. We find that liquidity creation of banks is procyclical. We show that the liquidity creation behavior of state-owned banks and foreign banks is similar to that of domestic private banks in terms of procyclicality. We further find that the magnitude of procyclicality is higher for liquidity creation than for lending. Thus, while ownership of banks does not influence the liquidity creation behavior of banks, such behavior can amplify business cycle fluctuations.

Subprime Borrowers, Securitization and the Transmission of Business Cycles

A growing literature (i.e. Jaffee, Lynch, Richardson, and Van Nieuwerburgh, 2009, Acharya and Schnabl, 2009) argues that securitization improves financial stability if the securitized assets are held by capital market participants, rather than financial intermediaries. I construct a quantitative macroeconomic model with a novel specification for mortgage-backed securities (MBS) to evaluate this claim for subprime securitization during the Great Recession. I find that output in the U.S. would have dropped by only about a third and house prices by only a half of what we actually observed, if subprime MBS had been purchased by non-financial agents, rather than held by banks. This is because banks are subject to capital requirements and if MBS remain within the banking system, the fall in their value puts a strain on banks’ balance sheets. The subsequent deleveraging amplifies business cycles. My findings suggest that the existence of the securitization market stabilizes the economy under the condition that financial intermediaries do not engage in the acquisition of securitized assets.

Endogenous credit standards and aggregate fluctuations

Widespread empirical evidence shows that credit standards fluctuate over the business cycle. We build a macroeconomic model in which countercyclical lending standards emerge as an equilibrium outcome. In the model, banks compete on lending rates as well as collateral requirements. The presence of lending relationships between firms and banks gives rise to endogenous fluctuations in interest rate margins and collateral requirements. We demonstrate that endogenous credit standards amplify business cycles, driving up output volatility by around 25% when compared to a model without lending relationships. Finally, we show that in order to combat the effects of endogenous credit standards on macroeconomic volatility, a countercyclical loan-to-value ratio is an effective macroprudential policy tool.

The Financial Accelerator and the Optimal Lending Contract

In the financial accelerator literature pioneered by Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (1999) entrepreneurs are myopic and loans have a fixed rate of return by assumption. We relax both of these assumptions and derive the optimal lending contract for forward looking entrepreneurs who can choose a state-contingent lending rate. We show that under the optimal lending contract, when entrepreneurs care about the future and are given the option of a state-contingent borrowing rate to insure against aggregate risk, financial frictions do not amplify business cycle fluctuations.

Flight to liquidity and the Great Recession

Abstract This paper argues that counter-cyclical liquidity hoarding by financial intermediaries may strongly amplify business cycles. It develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model in which banks operate subject to agency problems and funding liquidity risk in their intermediation activity. Importantly, the amount of liquidity reserves held in the financial sector is determined endogenously: Balance sheet constraints force banks to trade off insurance against funding outflows with loan scale. A financial crisis, simulated as an abrupt decline in the collateral value of bank assets, triggers a flight to liquidity, which strongly amplifies the initial shock and induces credit crunch dynamics sharing key features with the Great Recession. The paper thus develops a new balance sheet channel of shock transmission that works through the composition of banks’ asset portfolios.

Polarized Business Cycles

We are motivated by four stylized facts computed for emerging and developed economies: (i) business cycle movements are wider in emerging countries; (ii) economies in emerging countries experience greater economic policy uncertainty; (iii) emerging economies are more polarized and less politically stable; and (iv) economic policy uncertainty is positively related to political polarization. We show that a standard real business cycle (RBC) model augmented to incorporate political polarization, a 'polarized business cycle' (PBC) model, is consistent with these facts. Our main hypothesis is that fluctuations in economic variables are not only caused by innovations to productivity, as traditionally assumed in macroeconomic models, but also by shifts in political ideology. Switches between left-wing and right-wing governments generate uncertainty about the returns to private investment, and this affects real economic outcomes. Since emerging economies are more polarized than developed ones, the effects of political turnover are more pronounced. This translates into higher economic policy uncertainty and amplifies business cycles. We derive our results analytically by fully characterizing the long-run distribution of economic and fiscal variables. We then analyze the effect of a permanent increase in polarization on PBCs.

Flight-to-Liquidity and the Great Recession

This paper argues that counter-cyclical liquidity hoarding by financial intermediaries may strongly amplify business cycles. It develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model in which banks operate subject to financial frictions and idiosyncratic funding liquidity risk in their intermediation activity. Importantly, the amount of liquidity reserves held in the financial sector is determined endogenously: Balance sheet constraints force banks to trade off insurance against funding outflows with loan scale. The model shows that an aggregate shock to the collateral value of bank assets triggers a flight to liquidity, which amplifies the initial shock and induces credit crunch dynamics sharing key features with the Great Recession. The paper thus develops a new balance sheet channel of shock transmission that works through the composition of banks' asset portfolios rather than fluctuations in borrower net worth as in the financial accelerator literature.

Economic sentiment shocks and fluctuations in economic activity in the euro area and the USA

Economic sentiment indicators can provide a wealth of information for macroeconomic policy formulation and analysis. Despite this, economic sentiment is often neglected by mainstream economics. This article assesses whether there is a potential role for economic sentiment to amplify business cycle fluctuations. This paper integrates the European Commission Economic Sentiment Indicator data into an econometric analysis of the euro area business cycle. The investigation of the euro area economy suggests that sentiment shocks do have an impact on important macroeconomic variables such as output, retail sales, and unemployment. There is furthermore significant evidence that economic conditions and shocks affect economic sentiment.