Business Cycle Moments Research Articles

Financial crises, bailouts and monetary policy in open economies

I jointly study the optimal bailout policy and monetary policy in open economies that borrow in foreign currency from international lenders. A policy dilemma emerges during financial crises. Policymakers trade off the benefit of more bailouts alleviating firms’ financial constraints against the cost of larger currency devaluation, which tightens firms’ financial constraints. I embed the optimal bailout in an otherwise standard “sudden stop” model with nominal rigidities. The model sheds light on the role of bailouts and currency mismatch in driving the exchange rate dynamics, firms’ balance sheets and economic recovery. Quantitatively, the model matches key business cycle moments. A welfare evaluation shows that there are in general welfare gains from the systemic bailout policy despite ex ante moral hazard problems of firms.

Exchange Rate Disconnect in General Equilibrium

We propose a dynamic general equilibrium model of exchange rate determination that accounts for all major exchange rate puzzles, including Meese-Rogoff, Backus-Smith, purchasing power parity, and uncovered interest rate parity puzzles. We build on a standard international real business cycle model with home bias in consumption, augmented with shocks in the financial market that result in a volatile near-martingale behavior of exchange rates and ensure their empirically relevant comovement with macroeconomic variables, both nominal and real. Combining financial shocks with conventional productivity and monetary shocks allows the model to reproduce the exchange rate disconnect properties without compromising the fit of the business cycle moments.

Strategic Default with an Exit Decision

In 2010 Greece became the first advanced country to enter a sovereign default crisis. Preceding the crisis, debt relative to GDP was high and counter-cyclical, and consumption was smoother than income. Debt spiked just prior to the crisis. These dynamics are counter to the predictions of the standard strategic default model, which was developed to explain crises emerging markets. To match this behavior, we extend the strategic default model by endogenizing the sovereign's decision to exit default and reenter capital markets. We assume that exit requires payment of a recovery value based ability to pay, consistent with IMF guidelines that a sovereign default negotiate in good faith. We assume that a sovereign default must choose whether to repay recovery value and exit, characterizing an excusable default, or to repay nothing and continue default with the standard punishments, a strategic default. We identify the Greek default as excusable, and match Greek debt behavior leading to the crisis and business-cycle moments.

Financial Frictions and Macro‐Economic Fluctuations in Emerging Economies

AbstractThe country risk premium predicted by the dynamic real business cycle models in emerging markets is procyclical, whereas it is countercyclical in the data. This paper proposes a model in which a time‐varying risk premium emerges endogenously through a variant of the Bernanke–Gertler–Gilchrist financial accelerator mechanism. The estimated model can account for the volatility and the countercyclicality of risk premium as well as for other key business cycle moments. Time‐varying uncertainty in firm‐specific productivity significantly contributes to delivering a countercyclical default rate and explains more than half of the variances in the trade balance and risk premium.

Long-term business relationships, bargaining and monetary policy

We analyze a monetary economy where firms trading intermediate inputs engage in long-term business-to-business (B2B) relationships. We focus on features such as search for business partners, price negotiation and productivity levels that can make it convenient to separate a relationship. These features are introduced into an otherwise standard New Keynesian (NK) model for policy analysis, where the central bank adopts a Taylor rule. As a result of these features of the B2B relationships, final price and intermediate price inflation are generally not aligned, which is realistic but overlooked by the standard NK model. Consequently, we can investigate the extent to which the allocative role of the intermediate price contributes to the transmission of monetary policy shocks. We find that an allocative role arises from the endogenous separations of the relationships. However, this role is smaller than that in the standard NK model, leading to a comparable but micro-founded alternative explanation of the U.S. business cycle moments.

Increasing domestic financial participation: Implications for business cycles and labor markets

Recent policies in emerging economies (EMEs) have sought to increase the shares of households and firms that participate in the domestic banking system amid the backdrop that, compared to advanced economies (AEs), EMEs have drastically lower shares of both firm and household financial participation. We build a model with extensive margins of firm and household financial participation and equilibrium unemployment to study the impact on EME labor-market and business cycle dynamics of increasing the shares of firm and household financial participation in EMEs to AE levels. We find that a joint increase in household and firm domestic financial participation considerably narrow the differences in some, but not all, business cycle moments between EMEs and AEs. Critically, the impact of increasing only firm or only household participation can differ substantially from the impact of a joint increase. We stress the relevance of the extensive margin of domestic financial participation for labor-market and business cycle dynamics and the fact that promoting a joint increase in the shares of household and firm financial participation in EMEs can lead to smoother cyclical fluctuations, particularly in labor markets.

Informality, labor regulation, and the business cycle

We ask how labor regulation and informality affect macroeconomic volatility and the propagation of shocks in emerging economies. For this, we propose a small open economy business cycle model with frictional labor markets, endogenous labor participation, and an informal sector. Our own calculations from the ENOE national household survey reveal that these three margins are important to account for the labor market dynamics in Mexico. The model is calibrated to the Mexican economy, in particular to business cycle moments for employment and informality. We show that interest rate shocks, which affect specifically job creation in the formal sector, are key to obtain a countercyclical informality rate. In our model, the presence of an informal sector might help to mitigate the impact of a stringent labor regulation on employment and consumption fluctuations. In that sense, it adds flexibility to the economy in its adjustment to shocks, but at the cost of a lower productivity and an excess TFP and output volatility. Reducing the burden of labor regulation to the formal sector might achieve the goal of reducing output volatility while improving at the same time the efficiency in the allocation of resources.

Learning-by-doing and business cycles in emerging economies

This paper examines whether learning-by-doing plays an important role in emerging economies. A business cycle model with learning-by-doing is presented and estimated using the data of emerging and developed economies. Its performance is considered from the viewpoint of predictive performance and the business cycle moments focused on in recent studies, namely, high volatility of consumption relative to that of output, and highly countercyclical net exports. The model with learning-by-doing outperforms the trend productivity shocks proposed by Aguiar and Gopinath (J Polit Econ 115(1):69–102, 2007) in predictive performance and it can also replicate the key business cycle moments. This is made possible through enhancing the persistence of productivity shocks and affecting the household’s expectation of permanent income. Further, the model is consistent with the observed relationships between the business cycle moments and growth rates. These results suggest the essential role of learning-by-doing in emerging economies and imply a possible reason for the difference in business cycles in emerging and developed economies.

Who Benefits from Job Training Programs? Evidence from a High-Dosage Program in Brazil

Using admission lotteries and registry data linking labor market outcomes, we study the effect of a vocational training program focused on disadvantaged individuals in Brazil. The intensive program is an 18-month classroom training coupled with a 6-month on-the-job training provided by government-sponsored training centers. When assessing the impacts on 15,000 winners and 200,000 nonwinners who graduated in different business cycle moments, we show that female students fare better than their male counterparts. Results are driven by courses in services and those located in faster-growing local labor markets. Investigating outcomes beyond employment and earnings, we do not find an impact on entrepreneurship or university admission.

Foreign Direct Investment and Debt Financing in Emerging Economies

AbstractThe rich dynamics of capital flows is an important characteristic of business cycles in emerging market economies. In the data external debt is always procyclical, while FDI is procyclical only in normal times. We provide a microfounded rationale for this pattern by linking financial shocks to capital flows. For this purpose, we build a small open economy model in which firms are subject to borrowing constraints, and are either owned domestically or by foreign investors who purchase firms through FDI. During a financial crisis, the valuation gap per unit net worth between foreign and domestic investors widens, which triggers more FDI inflow. Our model produces business cycle moments consistent with empirical observations.

The role of learning for asset prices and business cycles

The implications of learning-based asset pricing are examined in a business cycle model with financial frictions. Agents learn about stock prices while firms face credit constraints that depend partly on their market value. Expectations are constrained to remain model-consistent conditional on a subjective belief for stock prices. The combination of financial frictions and learning amplifies shocks through a two-sided feedback mechanism between asset prices and real activity. The model matches not only important asset price and business cycle moments, but also several patterns of forecast error predictability in survey data across a range of variables.

Optimal input trade policy under economic uncertainties in a small open economy

ABSTRACTThis article theoretically analyses optimal input trade policy under economic uncertainties in a small open economy. The benchmark model explains both key business cycle moments and asset prices of a representative emerging economy, and the corresponding deterministic version of the model finds no gain by deviating from the free input trade policy. The main findings are as follows: (1) it is optimal for the government to subsidize imported intermediate inputs in the benchmark model and (2) the result is robust to various shocks, various key structural parameters and various preference specifications.

The Relative Importance of Aggregate and Sectoral Shocks and the Changing Nature of Economic Fluctuations

A principal components decomposition of sectoral IP data reveals that the contribution of aggregate shocks to the variance of aggregate output declined from about 70 percent in the period 1967–1983 to about 30 percent after 1983. We develop an “islands” model with two sectors and costly labor reallocation to investigate how this change in the relative importance of shocks alters business cycle moments. A version of the model with relatively more important sectoral shocks results in a sizeable decline in the cyclicality of labor productivity and is consistent with changes in several other business cycle moments observed in the data. (JEL E13, E23, E24, E32, J21, J24)

Informality, Labor Regulation, and the Business Cycle

We analyze the joint impact of labor regulation and informality on macroeconomic volatility and the propagation of shocks in emerging economies. For this, we propose a small open economy business cycle model with frictional labor markets, endogenous labor participation, and an informal sector. Our own calculations from the ENOE national household survey reveal that these three margins are important to account for the labor market dynamics in Mexico. The model is calibrated to the Mexican economy, in particular to business cycle moments for employment and informality. We show that interest rate shocks, which affect specifically job creation in the formal sector, are key to obtain a countercyclical informality rate. In our model, the presence of an informal sector might help to mitigate the impact of a stringent labor regulation on employment and consumption fluctuations. In that sense, it adds flexibility to the economy in its adjustment to shocks, but at the cost of a lower productivity and an excess TFP and output volatility. Reducing the burden of labor regulation to the formal sector might achieve the goal of reducing output volatility while improving at the same time the efficiency in the allocation of resources.

External Habit in a Production Economy: A Model of Asset Prices and Consumption Volatility Risk

A standard real business-cycle model with external habit and capital adjustment costs matches a long list of asset price and business-cycle moments: equity, firm value, and risk-free rate volatility; the equity premium; excess return predictability; consumption growth predictability; basic moments of consumption, output, and investment; among others. The model also generates endogenous consumption volatility risk. Precautionary savings motives make consumption sensitive to shocks in bad times, leading to countercyclical volatility, even with homoscedastic technology shocks. Habit acts as countercyclical leverage, which amplifies this channel. Habit also implies high risk aversion, which amplifies the stock price response.Received April 21, 2016; editorial decision February 3, 2017 by Editor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh.

The uncertainty multiplier and business cycles

I study a business cycle model where agents learn about the fundamentals by accumulating capital. During recessions, agents invest less, and this generates noisier estimates of macroeconomic conditions and an increase in uncertainty. The endogenous increase in aggregate uncertainty further reduces economic activity and thus gives rise to a multiplier effect that amplifies aggregate fluctuations. To discipline learning dynamics, I parametrize the model so that it matches not only standard business cycle moments but also survey data on macroeconomic forecasts. I find that the uncertainty multiplier amplifies output standard deviation by 16%.

Uncertainty and Unemployment

This paper studies the impact of time-varying idiosyncratic risk at the establishment level on unemployment fluctuations over 1972–2009. I build a tractable directed search model with firm dynamics and time-varying idiosyncratic volatility. The model allows for endogenous separations, entry and exit, and job-to-job transitions. I show that the model can replicate salient features of the microeconomic behavior of firms and that the introduction of volatility improves the fit of the model for standard business cycle moments. In a series of counterfactual experiments, I show that time-varying risk is important to account for the magnitude of fluctuations in aggregate unemployment for past U.S. recessions. Though the model can account for about 40% of the total increase in unemployment for the 2007–2009 recession, uncertainty alone is not sufficient to explain the magnitude and persistence of unemployment during that episode.

Macrofinancial History and the New Business Cycle Facts

In advanced economies, a century-long near-stable ratio of credit to GDP gave way to rapid financialization and surging leverage in the last forty years. This “financial hockey stick” coincides with shifts in foundational macroeconomic relationships beyond the widely-noted return of macroeconomic fragility and crisis risk. Leverage is correlated with central business cycle moments, which we can document thanks to a decade-long international and historical data collection effort. More financialized economies exhibit somewhat less real volatility, but also lower growth, more tail risk, as well as tighter real-real and real-financial correlations. International real and financial cycles also cohere more strongly. The new stylized facts that we discover should prove fertile ground for the development of a new generation of macroeconomic models with a prominent role for financial factors.

Macrofinancial History and the New Business Cycle Facts

In advanced economies, a century-long, near-stable ratio of credit to GDP gave way to rapid financialization and surging leverage in the last forty years. This “financial hockey stick” coincides with shifts in foundational macroeconomic relationships beyond the widely noted return of macroeconomic fragility and crisis risk. Leverage is correlated with central business cycle moments, which we can document thanks to a decade-long international and historical data collection effort. More financialized economies exhibit somewhat less real volatility, but also lower growth, more tail risk, as well as tighter real-real and real-financial correlations. International real and financial cycles also cohere more strongly. The new stylized facts that we discover should prove fertile ground for the development of a new generation of macroeconomic models with a prominent role for financial factors.

Working Capital in a Closed Economy Real Business Cycle Model

One challenge in real business cycle (RBC) models is their performance in matching non-targeted data moments. In small open economy environment, exogenous interest rate has been widely used to bring additional volatility through the working capital. The role of working capital channel in a simple closed economy has not been explicitly investigated though. This paper explores the impacts of working capital on the business cycle statistics in a closed economy RBC framework. I illustrate that working capital on both inputs decreases the volatilities of consumption and output, whereas its impact on relative volatilities and first order autocorrelations is ambiguous. Working capital drives the correlation between consumption and output to a reasonable range. Moreover, when the working capital is only on one of the inputs, business cycle implications are more complicated. I also show that level of working capital is crucial for the degree of procyclicality of interest rate. The asymmetric effects of this channel on the business cycle moments suggest that it can be used in order to improve the performance of closed economy RBC models.