Business Cycle Dynamics Research Articles

Dynamic connectedness among monetary policy cycle, financial cycle and business cycle in China

This study explores the cyclical features and the dynamic spillovers among monetary policy cycle, financial cycles (including credit, housing and stock market cycles) and business cycle in China during 1998–2018. We find that the five cycles exhibit a strong synchronicity in terms of responses to extreme events, and the spillovers among them are bi-directional and time-varying. Stock market cycle replacing business cycle becomes the main risk transmitter after the recent global financial crisis, while monetary policy and credit cycles act as risk receivers over the entire sample. Our findings verify the importance of financial cycle shock in business cycle dynamics and monetary policy formulation.

Business cycles and the internal dynamics of firms

Most business cycle theories originate from a paradigmatic vision with a two fold simplicity. The first of which is that firms are bound through simple relations in which they influence each other anonymously via prices but not directly through non-price rivalrous competition. And the second is that firms have immutable and transparent cores. These presumptions yield an economy whose natural state is one of stability. Macroeconomic dynamics, or change more generally, is brought about by exogenous shocks. This paper develops an alternate vision for understanding business cycle dynamics. We consider the dynamics that emerge from micro changes that originate from deep within firms. Each firm is surprised by externally visible innovations of other firms because they cannot observe each others’ high dimensional interiors. Innovations can cascade because of the complex microeconomic interrelations between the plans of firms. The interaction between external-observable attributes and internal-unobservable active cores of firms is capable of generating change without exogenous shocks.

Structural Changes in the Duration of Bull Markets and Business Cycle Dynamics

This paper tests for structural changes in the duration of bull regimes in 18 developed and emerging economies’ adjusted market capitalization stock indexes, by using the novel approach of Nicolau (Econ Lett 146:64–67, 2016) as well as two additional new procedures introduced here; and investigates whether the structural changes detected in the bull markets’ duration are connected to the business cycle. We conclude that changes in the duration of bull market regimes seem to precede periods of economic recession. The results provide statistically significant evidence that decreases in bull markets’ duration do not occur independently from economic crises, as 13 out of the 18 markets considered in our sample verify such decreases at least 12 months prior to the occurrence of an economic crisis. Additionally, these structural changes seem to affect smaller companies first, and then the larger ones. The association between decreases in the bull market regimes’ duration and economic crises is possibly a consequence of financial markets’ leading behavior over the economy. These structural changes may serve as proxies for decreasing confidence in financial markets, which naturally affects economic stability.

Risk-Taking, Capital Allocation and Optimal Monetary Policy

We study the role of firm heterogeneity in affecting business cycle dynamics and optimal stabilization policy. Firms differ in their degree of cyclicality, and hence, exposure to aggregate risk, leading to firm-specific risk premia that influence resource allocations. The heterogeneous firm economy can be recast in a representative firm formulation, but where total factor productivity (TFP) is endogenous and depends on the resource allocation. The model uncovers a novel tradeoff between the long-run level and volatility of TFP. Inefficiencies distort this tradeoff and result in either excessive volatility or depressed output, implying a role for corrective policy. Embedding this mechanism into a workhorse New Keynesian model, we show that allocational considerations can strengthen the incentives for leaning against the wind, i.e., optimal policy is more strongly countercyclical than in an observationally equivalent economy that abstracts from heterogeneity. A quantitative exercise suggests that the losses from ignoring heterogeneity can be substantial, which stem largely from a less productive allocation of resources and so depressed TFP and output.

When Two Become One: Foreign Capital and Household Credit Expansion

We employ data from financial accounts for 31 countries to trace the flow of financial capital through the economy and identify the ultimate sources of funds behind credit expansions. Removing the veil of financial intermediation reveals that foreign capital has financed most of the secular increase in credit-to-GDP ratios between 1980 and today. In the medium term, household credit financed with foreign capital is the crucial link between credit expansions and future economic performance. An increase in household credit financed from abroad is associated with a contemporaneous reallocation from the tradable to the non-tradable sector, and it predicts lower output and higher unemployment over the following years. Foreign-financed household credit expansion also predicts low returns on bank equities and housing. On the other hand, domestically financed credit neither predicts business cycle dynamics nor returns. Furthermore, household credit financed from abroad is a robust predictor of financial crises and the flight of foreign capital is the major force behind low credit growth after crises.

Endogenous Product Scope: Market Interlacing and Aggregate Business Cycle Dynamics

This paper examines a market interlacing industry configuration in general equilibrium with multi-product firms. In contrast to previous studies which utilize market segmentation, firms produce multiple products even in the complete absence of the love of variety. Product scopes are procyclical and entry and exit of firms generates an endogenous amplification mechanism. When simulated by shocks derived from the efficiency and labor wedges, the model replicates the changes in dynamics between the pre- and post 1983 periods, and explains the hours-productivity puzzle.

The role of endogenous capital depreciation rate for business cycle dynamics: lessons from Bulgaria (1999-2018)


 
 
 We allow for an endogenous depreciation rate of physical capital stock into a real-business-cycle model with a government sector. We calibrate the model to Bulgarian data for the period following the introduction of the currency board arrangement (1999-2018). We investigate the quantitative importance of the endogenous depreciation rate, and indirectly, the capital utilization mechanism for cyclical fluctuations in Bulgaria. Allowing for endogenous variations in the depreciation rate of capital improves the model performance against data, and in addition this extended setup dominates the standard RBC model framework with constant depreciation and a fixed utilization rate of physical capital, and a fixed depreciation rate e.g., Vasilev (2009).
 
 

"When it rains, it pours": fiscal policy, credit constraints and business cycles in emerging and developed economies

Fiscal procyclicality, meaning co-movement between government expenditure and macroeconomic fundamentals, is an important feature of business cycle dynamics for emerging and poor economies. I estimate a panel SVAR to investigate the reasons for fiscal procyclicality. The analysis sheds light on the role of external financial constraints in shaping fiscal policy. My findings suggest that the response of emerging governments to output fluctuations is similar to that of developed governments. However, emerging governments curtail spending in response to increases in the sovereign borrowing rate, which forces their consumption expenditure to act more procyclically. Using counterfactual analysis, I show that the key forces behind fiscal procyclicality are the sensitivity of government spending to international borrowing costs and the procyclical nature of these costs for emerging economies.

Searching for the Equity Premium

Labor market frictions are crucial for the equity premium in production economies. A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with recursive utility, search frictions, and capital accumulation yields a high equity premium of 4.26% per annum, a stock market volatility of 11.8%, and a low average interest rate of 1.59%, while simultaneously retaining plausible business cycle dynamics. The equity premium and stock market volatility are strongly countercyclical, while the interest rate and consumption growth are largely unpredictable. Because of wage inertia, dividends are procyclical despite consumption smoothing via capital investment. The welfare cost of business cycles is huge, 29%. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Gender differences in the volatility of work hours and labor demand

This paper examines the role of heterogeneity in a real business cycle model, which traditionally has not fully captured the relative volatility of hours to output. Men and women have different cyclical volatilities in hours worked, which is robust to different filtering methods. This empirical regularity is used to motivate a standard RBC model augmented to allow for two different agents following Jaimovich et al. (2013). These two agents have identical utility functions, but face different elasticities of labor demand due to their different complementarities with capital. These estimated elasticities find that women are more complementary to capital. The calibrated model generates the cyclical volatility of work hours by gender and for the total hours worked that matches the U.S. data better than the traditional representative agent model. I then explore other extensions to this model including investigating the stability of the estimated labor demand elasticities and allowing for various Frisch elasticities of labor supply. This paper demonstrates that allowing for even broad levels of heterogeneity in a simple framework can increase the model’s tractability with the data. Since gender is important to explain U.S. business cycle dynamics, we need to carefully consider heterogeneity when analyzing counter-cyclical economic policy, as it may not have symmetric effects across assorted groups.

Does Unemployment Risk Affect Business Cycle Dynamics?

In this paper, I show that the decline in household consumption during unemployment spells depends on both liquid and illiquid asset positions. I also provide evidence that unemployment spells predict the withdrawal of illiquid assets, particularly when households have few liquid assets. Motivated by these findings, I embed endogenous unemployment risk in a two-asset heterogeneous-agent New Keynesian model. The model is consistent with the above evidence and provides a new propagation mechanism for aggregate shocks due to a flight-to-liquidity that occurs when unemployment risk rises. This mechanism implies that unemployment insurance plays an important role as an automatic stabilizer, particularly when monetary policy is constrained.

Rental market and macroeconomics: evidence for the US

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to assess whether the inclusion of the rental housing market affect the dynamics of the real business cycles (RBCs).Design/methodology/approachFor this investigation, the authors model and estimate two dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) versions for the US economy, one with and one without the presence of residential rent.FindingsThe findings provide evidence that the inclusion of the rental housing market can improve the assessment of public policies and the projection of scenarios in the face of sudden macroeconomic shocks. The addition of this secondary housing market augments the effect of total factor productivity (TFP) shock on output and consumption. In addition, it increases the effect of the credit shock on the demand for housing. The latter highlights the role of credit for the real estate market. Therefore, the authors recommend that analysts and macro-prudential authorities consider adding it to their models.Originality/valueThe findings provide evidence that the inclusion of the rental housing market can improve the assessment of public policies and the projection of scenarios in the face of sudden macroeconomic shocks.

Technological Foundations for Dynamic Models with Endogenous Entry

Abstract I explore the technological foundations of dynamic entry models a la Bilbiie-Ghironi-Melitz where the endogenous creation of new inputs can generate either neoclassical business cycle dynamics or long run growth. Under a general CRS technology in labor and intermediate goods produced by monopolistic innovators, substitutability between inputs drives markups and profitability of innovations as functions of the number of firms. Decreasing profitability tends to generate a stable steady state associated with a propagation of shocks fostered by endogenous productivity. The decentralized equilibrium is inefficient and I characterize the optimal policy to fix static and dynamic inefficiencies.

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.

Business Cycles and the Invisible Hand

Most business cycle theories originate from a paradigmatic vision with a two fold simplicity. The first of which is that firms are bound through simple relations in which they influence each other anonymously via prices but not directly through non-price rivalrous competition. And the second is that firms have immutable and transparent cores. These presumptions yield an economy whose natural state is one of stability. Macroeconomic dynamics, or change more generally, is brought about by exogenous shocks. This paper develops an alternate vision for understanding business cycle dynamics. We consider the dynamics that emerge from micro changes that originate from deep within firms. Each firm is surprised by externally visible innovations of other firms because they cannot observe each others' high dimensional interiors. Innovations can cascade because of the complex microeconomic interrelations between the plans of firms. The interaction between external-observable attributes and internal-unobservable active cores of firms is capable of generating change without exogenous shocks.

Social Security Contributions and the Business Cycle

We investigate business cycle dynamics of social security contributions (SSC), by far the largest labor tax distortion in the OECD. In most countries, we find a negative covariation of SSC tax burdens with levels and growth of GDP at business cycle frequencies and lower. In detrended data, a decline of GDP of 1% is associated with a 0.05-0.2 percentage point increase in the aggregate SSC burden, measured as a fraction of the wage bill. For most countries, average marginal SSC rates exceed, but track average rates. Changes in average SSC tax burdens are largely due to adjustments in statutory tax schedules rather than cyclical shifts in earnings distributions. Our findings are consistent with Esping-Andersen's (1990) typology of social welfare states. In some countries, SSC rates co-move with measures of the “labor wedge” (Chari et al. 2007, Brinca et al. 2016).

The Vanishing Procyclicality of Labour Productivity

AbstractWe document two changes in post-war US macroeconomic dynamics: the procyclicality of labour productivity vanished, and the relative volatility of employment rose. We propose an explanation for these changes that is based on reduced hiring frictions due to improvements in information about the quality of job matches and the resulting decline in turnover. We develop a simple model with hiring frictions and variable effort to illustrate the mechanisms underlying our explanation. We show that our model qualitatively and quantitatively matches the observed changes in business cycle dynamics.

Can Pandemic-Induced Job Uncertainty Stimulate Automation?

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns about the future of work. The pandemic may become recurrent, necessitating repeated adoptions of social distancing measures (voluntary or mandatory), creating substantial uncertainty about worker productivity. But robots are not susceptible to the virus. Thus, pandemic-induced job uncertainty may boost the incentive for automation. However, elevated uncertainty also reduces aggregate demand and reduces the value of new investment in automation. We assess the importance of automation in driving business cycle dynamics following an increase in job uncertainty in a quantitative New Keynesian DSGE framework. We find that, all else being equal, job uncertainty does stimulate automation, and increased automation helps mitigate the negative impact of uncertainty on aggregate demand.

Recurrence quantification analysis on a Kaldorian business cycle model

Business cycles denote oscillations in economy as a result of downturns and expansions. The macroeconomic variable under our investigation is income as derived by the dynamic interaction with capital, consumption and investment. In this paper, a Kaldorian business cycle model is used to simulate real dynamics so that nonlinear techniques such as recurrence quantification analysis, Poincare Plot and related quantifiers can be applied. Analysis of chaos brings evidences on fractal dimension and entropy measures for both real data and model’s simulations. The final goal is to discover whether real and simulated business cycle dynamics have similar characteristics and validate the model as a suitable tool to simulate reality.

Regional output growth in the United Kingdom: More timely and higher frequency estimates from 1970

SummaryOutput growth estimates for regions of the UK are currently published at an annual frequency only, released with a long delay, and offer limited historical coverage. To improve the regional database this paper develops a mixed‐frequency multivariate model and uses it to produce consistent estimates of quarterly regional output growth dating back to 1970. We describe how these estimates are updated and evaluated on an ongoing, quarterly basis to publish online (at www.escoe.ac.uk/regionalnowcasting) more timely regional growth estimates. We illustrate how the new quarterly data can contribute to our historical understanding of business cycle dynamics and connectedness between regions.