Two-country Business Cycle Model Research Articles

Optimal unemployment insurance and international risk sharing

If a group of countries were to introduce a common unemployment insurance system, what should it look like? Using a two-country business cycle model with incomplete financial markets and frictional labor markets, we show that the optimal replacement rate becomes more countercyclical relative to a closed economy, due to the planner’s desire for international risk sharing. Moreover, it is feasible to channel cross-country transfers through the unemployment insurance system without affecting unemployment levels. When we calibrate our model to Eurozone data, optimal transfers are sizable and stabilize consumption mainly in the periphery countries, while optimal replacement rates are countercyclical overall.

Real exchange rate variability in a two-country business cycle model

This paper shows that introducing recursive preferences in a standard two-country business cycle model implies a real exchange rate as volatile as in the data. With recursive preferences the marginal utility of consumption today depends on innovations in future utilities. Productivity shocks with a unit root have long-term effects and home bias implies that the effects differ across countries. A positive shock in one country therefore leads to a larger drop in marginal utility in that country. There is then a strong depreciation of the real exchange rate and resources are transferred abroad due to risk-sharing between households. This leads to a volatile real exchange rate and can imply positive cross-country correlations in both investment and employment. Innovations to future utilities imply volatile stochastic discount factors which are necessary to price financial assets. The paper therefore bridges the gap between models in international macroeconomics and finance.

Composite habits and international transmission of business cycles

This paper shows how internal habit formation defined over a composite of consumption and leisure can bring a two-country business cycle model closer to the data. Conditional on productivity shocks, our model reconciles with the data by closing the gap between cross-country correlations of consumption and output. It also predicts positive international correlations of investment and employment of the magnitude observed in the data. In other words, a rather parsimonious departure from a canonical two-country, two-good model goes a long way toward addressing two long-standing puzzles: the “quantity anomaly” and the “international comovement puzzle”.

Optimal Unemployment Insurance and International Risk Sharing

We discuss how cross-country unemployment insurance can be used to improve international risk sharing. We use a two-country business cycle model with incomplete financial markets and frictional labor markets where the unemployment insurance scheme operates across both countries. Cross-country insurance through the unemployment insurance system can be achieved without affecting unemployment outcomes. The Ramsey-optimal policy however prescribes a more countercyclical replacement rate when international risk sharing concerns enter the unemployment insurance trade-off. We calibrate our model to Eurozone data and find that optimal stabilizing transfers through the unemployment insurance system are sizable and mainly stabilize consumption in the periphery countries, while optimal replacement rates are countercyclical overall. Moreover, we find that debt-financed national policies are a poor substitute for fiscal transfers.

International fiscal spillovers

A two-country business cycle model featuring nominal rigidities, countercyclical mark-ups, rule of thumb consumers and government spending reversals is used to identify inequality predictions that are robust across a range of empirically plausible parameterizations. These robust inequality restrictions are imposed onto a regime-change factor model for the United States and its main trade partners to estimate the international fiscal spillovers. The effects of U.S. government spending on foreign real activity are found to be sizable and significant, operating mainly by lowering real interest rates rather than boosting trade balances. In contrast, there seems to be only limited evidence of state dependence in the international transmission of fiscal policy.

Large open economies and fixed costs of capital adjustment

Capital reallocation creates excess volatility in investment in many two-country open economy models. Convex adjustment costs to capital have become a standard tool to deal with this. However, current microeconomic investment models feature non-convex adjustment costs as the dominant friction. This paper analyzes fixed costs to capital adjustment in a two-country business cycle model and finds that fixed costs – unlike in closed economies – dampen aggregate investment volatilities. Moreover, convex adjustment costs can serve as a stand-in for these fixed adjustment costs when one is interested in aggregate dynamics only. Yet, the mapping between fixed and quadratic adjustment costs co-depends on other model parameters.

Has the Euro changed the business cycle?

In contrast to the notion that the exchange-rate regime is non-neutral, there is little evidence that EMU has systematically changed the European business cycle. In fact, we find the volatility of macroeconomic variables largely unchanged before and after the introduction of the Euro. Exceptions are a strong decline in real exchange rate volatility and a considerable increase in cross-country correlations. To account for this finding, we develop a two-country business cycle model which is able to replicate key features of European data. In particular, the model correctly predicts a limited effect of EMU on standard business cycles statistics. However, further analysis reveals that the Euro has changed the nature of the cycle through its impact on the transmission mechanism. Cross-country spillovers have become relatively more, domestic shocks relatively less important in accounting for economic fluctuations under EMU. This explains why there is little change in unconditional volatilities.

Has the Euro Changed the Business Cycle?

In contrast to the notion that the exchange-rate regime is non-neutral, there is little evidence that EMU has systematically changed the European business cycle. In fact, we find the volatility of macroeconomic variables largely unchanged before and after the introduction of the euro. Exceptions are a strong decline in real exchange rate volatility and a considerable increase in cross-country correlations. To account for this finding, we develop a two-country business cycle model which is able to replicate key features of European data. In particular, the model correctly predicts a limited effect of EMU on standard business cycles statistics. However, further analysis reveals that the euro has changed the nature of the cycle through its impact on the transmission mechanism. Cross-country spillovers have become relatively more, domestic shocks relatively less important in accounting for economic fluctuations under EMU. This explains why there is little change in unconditional volatilities.

Immigration, remittances and business cycles

Using data on border enforcement and macroeconomic indicators from the U.S. and Mexico, we estimate a two-country business cycle model of labor migration and remittances. The model matches the cyclical dynamics of unskilled migration, and documents the insurance role of remittances in consumption smoothing. Over the cycle, immigration increases with the expected stream of future wage gains, but it is dampened by a sunk emigration cost. Migration barriers slow the adjustment of the stock of immigrant labor, enhancing the volatility of unskilled wages and remittances. Changes in border enforcement have asymmetric welfare implications for the skilled and unskilled households.

Immigration, Remittances, and Business Cycles

We use data on border enforcement and macroeconomic indicators from the United States and Mexico to estimate a two-country business cycle model of labor migration and remittances. The model matches the cyclical dynamics of labor migration to the United States and documents how remittances to Mexico serve an insurance role to smooth consumption across the border. During expansions in the destination economy, immigration increases with the expected stream of future wage gains, but it is dampened by a sunk migration cost that reflects the intensity of border enforcement. During recessions, established migrants are deterred from returning to their country of origin, which places an additional downward pressure on the wage of native unskilled workers. Thus, migration barriers reduce the ability of the stock of immigrant labor to adjust during the cycle, enhancing the volatility of unskilled wages and remittances. We quantify the welfare implications of various immigration policies for the destination economy.

International business cycles with complete markets

Kehoe and Perri (2002) show that a two-country business cycle model with endogenously incomplete markets helps to resolve the “international comovement puzzle” (Baxter, 1995) and the “quantity anomaly” (Backus et al., 1992, 1995). We claim that a similar performance can be achieved without resorting to market incompleteness. We show that a model with complete markets driven by productivity shocks alone can account for the “international comovement puzzle”. Our model features time nonseparable preferences that allow arbitrarily small wealth effects on labor supply. It matches the data by predicting (i) positive cross-country correlations of investment and hours worked; (ii) realistic cross-country correlations of consumption. It reduces the gap between international correlations of output and consumption, but fails to change their order. Unlike models with restricted international markets, ours show little sensitivity to the parameterization of the forcing process.

Revisiting the consumption-real exchange rate anomaly in a model with non-traded goods

This paper shows that the assumption used in many two-country business cycle models that all non-traded goods are nondurable consumption goods magnifies the severity of the consumption-real exchange rate anomaly, which is the discrepancy between the high correlation between relative consumption and the real exchange rate predicted by most models and the low correlation observed empirically. This assumption hampers the ability to generate wealth effects necessary for the economies to deviate away from full risk-sharing. Using an alternative setup in which non-traded goods can also be investment goods improves the ability of the model to generate wealth effects, and therefore to overcome the anomaly.

Global Banking and International Business Cycles

This paper incorporates a global bank into a two-country business cycle model. The bank collects deposits from households and makes loans to entrepreneurs, in both countries. It has to finance a fraction of loans using equity. We investigate how such a bank capital requirement affects the international transmission of productivity and loan default shocks. Three findings emerge. First, the bank's capital requirement has little effect on the international transmission of productivity shocks. Second, the contribution of loan default shocks to business cycle fluctuations is negligible under normal economic conditions. Third, an exceptionally large loan loss originating in one country induces a sizeable and simultaneous decline in economic activity in both countries. This is particularly noteworthy, as the 2007-09 global financial crisis was characterized by large credit losses in the US and a simultaneous sharp output reduction in the US and the Euro Area. Our results thus suggest that global banks may have played an important role in the international transmission of the crisis.

Immigration, Remittances and Business Cycles

We use data on border enforcement and macroeconomic indicators from the U.S. and Mexico to estimate a two-country business cycle model of labor migration and remittances. The model matches the cyclical dynamics of labor migration to the U.S. and documents how remittances to Mexico serve an insurance role to smooth consumption across the border. During expansions in the destination economy, immigration increases with the expected stream of future wage gains, but it is dampened by a sunk migration cost that reflects the intensity of border enforcement. During recessions, established migrants are deterred from returning to their country of origin, which places an additional downward pressure on the wage of native unskilled workers. Thus, migration barriers reduce the ability of the stock of immigrant labor to adjust during the cycle, enhancing the volatility of unskilled wages and remittances. We quantify the welfare implications of various immigration policies for the destination economy.

Immigration, Remittances and Business Cycles

We use data on border enforcement and macroeconomic indicators from the U.S. and Mexico to estimate a two-country business cycle model of labor migration and remittances. The model matches the cyclical dynamics of labor migration to the U.S. and documents how remittances to Mexico serve an insurance role to smooth consumption across the border. During expansions in the destination economy, immigration increases with the expected stream of future wage gains, but it is dampened by a sunk migration cost that reflects the intensity of border enforcement. During recessions, established migrants are deterred from returning to their country of origin, which places an additional downward pressure on the wage of native unskilled workers. Thus, migration barriers reduce the ability of the stock of immigrant labor to adjust during the cycle, enhancing the volatility of unskilled wages and remittances. We quantify the welfare implications of various immigration policies for the destination economy.

Substitution Elasticities and Investment Dynamics in Two-Country Business Cycle Models

Two-country applications of equilibrium business cycle methodology have succeeded in matching some key features of international fluctuations. However, discrepancies between theory and data remain. This paper identifies an anomaly related to a basic property of typical models: The prediction of countercyclical net exports is fundamentally related to a counterfactual implication for negative cross-country investment correlations. The introduction of investment adjustment costs can induce positive investment comovement; however, this has the side-effect of reversing the cyclical behavior of net exports. The calibration of a low elasticity of substitution between domestic goods and imports is shown to be a more robust specification with regard to this and other puzzles that have arisen in the international business cycle literature.