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This paper addresses the positive implications of indexing risky debt to observable aggregate conditions. These issues are pursued within the context of the celebrated financial accelerator model of Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (1999). The principle conclusions include: (1) the estimated level of indexation is significant, (2) the business cycle properties of the model are significantly affected by this degree of indexation, (3) the importance of investment shocks in the business cycle depends upon the estimated level of indexation, and (4) although the data prefers the financial model with indexation over the frictionless model, they have remarkably similar business cycle properties for non-financial exogenous shocks.

I investigate a model of the U.S. economy with nominal rigidities and a financial accelerator mechanism a la Bernanke et al. (1999). I calculate total factor productivity and monetary policy deviations for the U.S. and quantitatively explore the ability of the model to account for the cyclical patterns of GDP (excluding government), investment, consumption, the share of hours worked, inflation and the quarterly interest rate spread between the Baa corporate bond yield and the 20-year Treasury bill rate during the Great Moderation. I show that the magnitude and cyclicality of the external finance premium depend nonlinearly on the degree of price stickiness (or lack thereof) in the Bernanke et al. (1999) model and on the specification of both the target Taylor (1993) rate for policy and the exogenous monetary shock process. The strong countercyclicality of the external finance premium induces substitution away from consumption and into investment in periods where output grows above its long-run trend as the premium tends to fall below its steady state and financing investment becomes temporarily cheaper. The less frequently prices change in this environment, the more accentuated the fluctuations of the external finance premium are and the more dominant they become on the dynamics of investment, hours worked and output. However, these features — the countercyclicality and large volatility of the spread — are counterfactual and appear to be a key impediment limiting the ability of the model to account for the U.S. data over the Great Moderation period.

We describe a dynamic macroeconomic model that incorporates firm-level borrowing constraints, competitive CES loan production, and rigidities on both setting prices and wages. The external finance premium (interest-rate spread) is countercyclical with technology and financial shocks, and procyclical with consumption spending shocks. The real effects of financial shocks are significantly amplified when either considering greater rigidities for price/wage setting or a low elasticity of substitution in loan production (banking real rigidities). In the monetary policy analysis, a stabilizing Taylor (1983)-style rule performs slightly better when incorporating a positive and small response coefficient to the external finance premium.

This study identifies empirically the impact of various macroeconomic factors on the default risk premium. Using monthly data for the period 1970-2010 for the U.S., our estimations indicate that the monetary policy aggregates, risk-free interest rate, term structure of interest rates, inflation, and the state of the business cycle influence the risk premium. The results also provide some evidence in support of the hypothesis that the development of information technology has had a decreasing impact on the risk premium. Expectedly, various financial crises have had substantial and long-lasting effects on the premium. The results suggest that the direct impact of subprime crisis and Lehman collapse on the risk premium was as large as 2.5 percent-points for a sustainable period. Foreign financial crises, in turn, have lowered the risk premium in the U.S. market suggesting flight-to-safety phenomenon.

By combining the approaches of Gertler and Karadi (2011) and Bernanke et al. (1999), I develop a DSGE model with leverage constraints both in the banking and in the non-financial firm sector. I calibrate this full model to US data. In a world with only a monetary policy and a productivity shock, the full model matches the relative volatility of the external finance premium, while a BGG model generates too low volatility. The full model also matches the procyclicality of bank leverage, unlike the GK model. For a reasonably calibrated combination shocks to the net worth of banks and non-financial firms, the model reproduces a substantial share of the contraction (increase) of investment (the external finance premium) observed during the Great Recession.

We examine business cycle fluctuations in a dynamic macroeconomic model that incorporates firm-level borrowing constraints, competitive loan production, and rigidities on both setting prices and wages. The external finance premium (interest-rate spread) is countercyclical with technology and financial shocks, and procyclical with consumption spending shocks. The real effects of financial shocks are significantly amplified when either considering greater rigidities for price/wage setting or a low elasticity of substitution in loan production (real rigidities in the financial sector). In the monetary policy analysis, a stabilizing Taylor (1983)-style rule performs slightly better when incorporating a positive and small response coefficient to the external finance premium.

We study the leading properties of 30 U.S. high yield spreads for economic growth between 1996 and 2012 and show that they disappeared in the second half of the 2000s. Our empirical fi ndings demonstrate the unreliability of high yield spreads as leading indicators and cast doubts on the existence of a strong and functioning financial accelerator in recent years.

In this survey, I review the academic and policy-oriented literature on the linkages between financial markets and the rest of the economy. The survey begins with the leading economic theories for why the financial sector can influence the macroeconomy. Second, I consider the empirical research on spillovers from the financial sector to the rest of the economy, as well as across financial markets in different countries. Third, I discuss key policy debates surrounding macro-finance linkages. The survey concludes with a summary of major gaps in the existing literature.

To explore the relative macroeconomic importance of financial intermediaries' (FIs’) net worth to that of non-financial firms (entrepreneurs), we extend the financial accelerator model of Bernanke, et al. (1999), such that both FIs’ and entrepreneurs rely on costly external debt. Our model, which is calibrated to the U.S. economy, highlights two features of the FIs’ net worth. First, the relative size of FIs' net worth as compared to entrepreneurial net worth, namely, the net- worth distribution in the economy, is important for the financial accelerator effect. Second, a shock to the FIs' net worth has greater aggregate impact than that to entrepreneurial net worth. The key reason for these findings is the low net worth of FIs’ in the United States. Our results imply that the ongoing regulatory reforms that protect banks' net worth from irrational exuberance or foster its accumulation are beneficial for macroeconomic stability.

Germany and the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia (the CE4) have been in a process of deepening economic integration which has lead to the development of a dynamic supply chain within Europe—the Germany-Central European Supply Chain (GCESC). Model-based simulations suggest two key policy implications: First, as a reflection of strengthening trade linkages, German fiscal spillovers to the CE4 and more broadly to the rest of the euro area, have increased over time, but are still relatively small. This is explained by the supply chain nature of trade integration: final demand in Germany is not necessarily the main determinant of CE4 exports to Germany. Second, increased trade openness in both Germany and the CE4 implies a greater exposure of the GCESC to global shocks. However, owing to its strong fundamentals—including sound balance sheets and its safe haven status— Germany plays the role of a regional anchor of stability by better absorbing shocks from other trading partners instead of amplifying their transmission across the GCESC.

In the present work we investigate how the state of credit markets non-linearly affects the impact of fiscal policies. We estimate a Threshold Vector Autoregression (TVAR) model on U.S quarterly data for the period 1984-2010. We employ the spread between BAA-rated corporate bond yield and 10-year treasury constant maturity rate as a proxy for credit conditions. We find that the response of output to fiscal policy shocks are stronger and more persistent when the economy is in the tight credit regime. The fiscal multipliers are abundantly and persistently higher than one when firms face increasing financing costs, whereas they are feebler and often lower than one in the normal credit regime. On the normative side, our results suggest policy makers to carefully plan fiscal policy measures according to the state of credit markets.

Desenvolvemos um modelo com fricções no crédito tanto para firmas como famílias. Crédito às firmas é tratado como nos modelos de acelerador financeiro (e.g. Bernanke e Gilchrist (1999)). Os juros sobre os recursos emprestados às famílias dependem de seu endividamento, como em Curdia e Woodford (2010). O modelo é estimado para o Brasil, utilizado para estudar os episódios de desaceleração, e para a extração dos prêmios de financiamento (destilados a partir de dados não financeiros), os quais são comparados com informações sobre crédito às pessoas físicas e jurídicas. Dessa forma, o obtém-se um termômetro para mensurar como medidas prudenciais sobre o crédito afetam atividade e inflação. We write model that considers both households' and firms' credit frictions. Firms' credit is modeled by the traditional financial accelerator à la Bernanke e Gilchrist (1999). Households that borrow funds face interest rates that increase with their debt, as in Curdia and Woodford (2010). We estimate the model using Brazilian data, use it to study recent crisis episodes, and validate the finance premia (distilled from non-financial data) with available credit information. We then propose that the model can be used as a termometer to evaluate how prudential credit measures affect growth and inflation.

We examine business cycle fluctuations in a dynamic macroeconomic model that incorporates a financial accelerator mechanism, borrowing constraints, and frictions on both setting prices and wages. After an adverse financial shock, the slow-adjustment process on wage cuts results in higher production marginal costs, lower firm earnings, and a subsequent reduction in equity that explains the increase in the cost of borrowing and the credit crunch. The real effects of adverse financial shocks are significantly amplified when either considering greater rigidities for price/wage setting or a low elasticity of substitution in loan production (real rigidities in the financial sector). In the monetary policy analysis, a Taylor (1983)-style rule performs slightly better when incorporating a small response coefficient to the spread between borrowing and saving interest rates.

The financial crisis has brought the interaction between housing prices and household borrowing into the limelight of economic policy debate. This paper examines the nexus of housing prices and credit in Norway within a structural vector equilibrium correcting model (SVECM) over the period 1986q2- 2008q4. The results establish a two-way interaction in the long-run, so that higher housing prices lead to a credit expansion, which in turn puts an upward pressure on housing prices. Interest rates influence housing prices indirectly through the credit channel. Furthermore, households' expectations about future development in teir own income as well as in the Norwegian economy have a significant impact on housing price growth. Dynamic simulations show how shocks are propagated and amplified. When we augment the model to include the supply side, these effects are dampened. The paper is an extended version of Anundsen and Jansen (2013b) and it encompasses a previous Discussion Paper 651 (Anundsen and Jansen, 2011).

This paper evaluates policy alternatives to achieve permanent fiscal consolidation in Hungary, based on a general equilibrium calibration. The main finding is that the composition of the consolidation, as determined by the mix of revenue and expenditure measures, has important implications for growth, employment, investment, and other key macroeconomic variables. A reduction in current expenditures yields the smallest GDP contraction in the short term and can increase output in the long term by stimulating labor participation and private investment. On the other end of the spectrum, a consolidation of government investment and corporate taxes are the most costly, as disincentives for private investment result in protracted declines in GDP that compound over time to GDP losses that are multiple times the initial size of the consolidation.

Recent work in macroeconomics argues that imperfections in capital markets may lead to business cycle fluctuations by propagating relatively modest shocks. Evidence for such a mechanism (also known as the ‘financial accelerator’) consists largely of firm-level studies showing that cash flow is an important predictor of investment. But this evidence is often viewed with skepticism because cash flow is also a good indicator of investment opportunities. In this paper, we develop a framework for estimating the extent to which the predictive power of cash flow can be attributed to its role as a ‘fundamental’ versus its role in alleviating credit frictions. For firms with access to commercial paper and bond markets, we find that the perfect capital markets model of investment can fully account for the role of cash flow. For firms with only limited access to capital markets (as indicated by lack of participation in public debt markets) however, investment appears to be ‘excessively’ sensitive to fluctuations in cash flow. These results thus clarify the role of cash flow in investment equations and provide support for the existence of a financial accelerator.

We study the effects of federal purchases on firms’ investment using a novel panel dataset that combines federal procurement contracts in the United States with key financial firm-level information. We find that 1 dollar of federal spending increases firms’ capital investment by 7 to 11 cents. The average effect masks heterogeneity: Effects are stronger for firms that face financing constraints and they are close to 0 for unconstrained firms. In line with the financial accelerator model, our findings indicate that the effect of government purchases works through easing firms’ access to external borrowing. Furthermore, industry-level analysis suggests that that the increase in investment at the firm level translates into an industry-wide effect without crowding-out capital investment of other firms in the same industry.

This paper investigates the transmission mechanism of financial shocks across large economies. To quantify these effects, we construct and estimate a two-region open economy DSGE model with nominal and real rigidities. We model the financial side of the economies using the financial accelerator mechanism of Bernanke et al. (1999). We find that the baseline model fails to generate the high degree of macroeconomic correlation between the U.S. and Euro Area economies. Allowing for an ad hoc, cross-regional correlation in financial shocks considerably improves the model’s ability to replicate the spill-over effects of U.S. financial shocks. We then extend the baseline model by including global banking and generate an endogenous, crossregional correlation of cost of capital. Simulations demonstrate a larger Euro Area response to U.S. shocks and highlight the importance of including frictions in international financial contracts, and not only in domestic financial contracts, for more accurately capturing the international transmission of domestic shocks.

From the point of view of the average macroeconomist, agent based modelling has an obvious drawback: It makes impossible to think in aggregate terms. The modeller, in fact, can reconstruct aggregate variables only "from the bottom up" by summing the individual quantities. As a consequence the interpretation of the transmission mechanism of shocks is somehow arbitrary. We propose a modelling strategy which reduces the dimensionality of an agent based framework by replacing the actual distributional features (in our model: the distribution of firms' financial conditions) with the first and second moments of the distribution itself. The main message is that the difficulty of thinking in macroeconomic terms when dealing with multi-agent economies can be circumvented by means of an appropriate aggregation procedure –which we label the Modified-Representative Agent –such that the distribution of agents' characteristics can be approximated by (at least) the (first and second) moments of the distribution. The moments of the distribution play the role of macroeconomic variables. We put this strategy at work in a model of the fi nancial accelerator in which fi rms' heterogeneous degree of fi nancial robustness affect investment in a bankruptcy risk context (à la Greenwald-Stiglitz).

In existing literature, commercial banks are often considered mere financial intermediaries that facilitate the flow of credit in an imperfect credit market. However, as demonstrated in the history of financial instability, the behavior of financial institutions plays an important role. This paper examines how lenders’ attitudes affect macroeconomic performance. In our analysis, the economy is composed of multiple borrowers (firms) and one lender (bank). Each borrower is directly connected to the lender through its credit contract. At the same time, each borrower is indirectly connected to all the other borrowers within the credit network. Using this model, we execute computer simulations to examine the economic consequences of lending attitudes. The results of the simulations demonstrate that the bank’s lending attitude functions as a financial accelerator; that is, it significantly affects the dynamics of the economic system through the credit network. Consequently, the same level of exogenous shock generates completely different outcomes depending on the different lending attitudes. The results also show that there exists an optimal lending attitude that leads to high economic growth and a stable growth path.

This paper estimates and simulates a sticky-price dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model with a financial accelerator, to find out the relative importance of sources inducing China economy fluctuation. The estimation and simulation results provide quantitative evidence that supply factors are the main source. The importance of demand side factors for output fluctuation is relatively minor, so authorities should pay more attention on supply capacity.

The recent financial and economic crises that affected a large number of countries, on one hand, and the recent theoretical developments in the field of information economics, on the other, drew attention to the existence of a potential link between financial factors and fluctuations in economic activity in what concerns investment in fixed assets. An issue that has been highlighted is the possibility that fluctuations in economic activity are related and amplified by financial weaknesses of firms – the so-called financial accelerator mechanism. Based on this reasoning, this paper aims at enhancing current empirical knowledge by analysing the relationship between a firm’s investment decision and its financial position. To that purpose three hypotheses were tested: (a) the financial position of a firm is a major determinant of its capital investment decisions; (b) the financial position of a firm is more important for firms that face higher information problems in financial markets; and (c) the financial position of a firm is even more important for firms that face bigger information problems in financial markets at times of economic recession. The study herein presented, used a panel of aggregate data of sixteen Portuguese industrial sectors, covering a period of time from 1990 to 2005. The findings obtained seem to lend support to the financial accelerator hypothesis. In fact, it was found that, in general, the financial position is an important determinant of a firms’ investment decision, and that this impact is higher for smaller firms. However, the result on the influence of the business cycle was not as clear as it was expected.

Historical experience shows that disruptions in credit markets can have a material impact on activity and inflation. However, it is hard to measure such effects owing to the difficulty in isolating credit supply shocks. This paper employs survey data to identify the impact of credit supply shocks in Australia over the past three decades, using a structural vector autoregression approach. We estimate that a one standard deviation shock to the balance of firms reporting difficulty obtaining finance (a 'credit supply shock') reduces Australian GDP by almost ⅓ per cent after one year and gross national expenditure by nearly ½ per cent. The effect on business credit is larger and more persistent, with credit declining by nearly 1 per cent relative to its baseline after two and a half years. During the global financial crisis, the cumulative impact of credit supply shocks is estimated to have contributed to a reduction in GDP of 1 per cent (in mid 2009). While credit supply shocks had a notable effect on GDP during the global financial crisis, this credit event appears to have been shorter and sharper than that experienced during the period of financial instability in the early 1990s. Consistent with a 'credit channel' of monetary policy transmission, an unexpected tightening of monetary policy results in a significant increase in the balance of firms reporting difficulty obtaining finance. We also find effects consistent with a financial accelerator mechanism, whereby an improvement in balance sheets results in easier credit conditions and higher GDP and business credit. Altogether, these results suggest that credit market developments have been an integral aspect of the business cycle in Australia since financial deregulation in the 1980s.

We characterize the evolution over time of a network of credit relations among financial agents as a system of coupled stochastic processes. Each process describes the dynamics of individual financial robustness, while the coupling results from a network of liabilities among agents. The average level of risk diversification of the agents coincides with the density of links in the network. In addition to a process of diffusion of financial distress, we also consider a discrete process of default cascade, due to the re-evaluation of agents' assets. In this framework we investigate the probability of individual defaults as well as the probability of systemic default as a function of the network density. While it is usually thought that diversification of risk always leads to a more stable financial system, in our model a tension emerges between individual risk and systemic risk. As the number of counterparties in the credit network increases beyond a certain value, the default probability, both individual and systemic, starts to increase. This tension originates from the fact that agents are subject to a financial accelerator mechanism. In other words, individual financial fragility feeding back on itself may amplify the effect of an initial shock and lead to a full fledged systemic crisis. The results offer a simple possible explanation for the endogenous emergence of systemic risk in a credit network.

The recent global financial crisis has increased interest in macroeconomic models that incorporate financial linkages. Here, we compare the simulation properties of five mediumsized general equilibrium models used in Eurosystem central banks which incorporate such linkages. The financial frictions typically considered are the financial accelerator mechanism (convex \spread costs related to firms' leverage ratios) and collateral constraints (based on asset values). The harmonized shocks we consider illustrate the workings and mechanisms underlying the financial-macro linkages embodied in the models. We also look at historical shock decompositions of real GDP growth across the models since 2005 in order to shed light on the common driving factors underlying the recent financial crisis. In these exercises, the models share qualitatively similar and interpretable features. This gives us confidence that we have some broad understanding of the mechanisms involved. In addition, we also survey the current and developing trends in the literature on financial frictions.

The recent global financial crisis has increased interest in macroeconomic models that incorporate financial linkages. Here, we compare the simulation properties of five medium-sized general equilibrium models used in eurosystem central banks which incorporate such linkages. The financial frictions typically considered are the financial accelerator mechanism (convex “ spread” costs related to firms’ leverage ratios) and collateral constraints (based on asset values). The harmonized shocks we consider illustrate the workings and mechanisms underlying the financial-macro linkages embodied in the models. We also look at historical shock decompositions of real GDP growth across the models since 2005 in order to shed light on the common driving factors underlying the recent financial crisis. In these exercises, the models share qualitatively similar and interpretable features. This gives us confidence that we have some broad understanding of the mechanisms involved. In addition, we also survey the current and developing trends in the literature on financial frictions.

The Pareto-efficiency of competitive economic equilibrium is, of course, a central feature of the Arrow-Debreu paradigm. But in 1986 two papers appeared concerning the welfare inefficiency of competitive equilibria. Geanakoplos and Polemarchakis showed that ‘missing markets’ implied the possibility of Pareto-improving interventions; while Greenwald and Stiglitz demonstrated that missing markets and asymmetric information implied that competitive market prices could generate ‘pecuniary externalities’ — with market prices generating side-effects conceptually similar to technological externalities (such as the productive interactions of Silicon Valley or the negative effects of industrial pollution).

I add a moral hazard problem between banks and depositors as in Gertler and Karadi (2009) to a DSGE model with a costly state verification problem between entrepreneurs and banks as in Bernanke et al. (1999) (BGG). This modification amplifies the response of the external finance premium and the overall economy to monetary policy and productivity shocks. It allows my model to match the volatility and correlation with output of the external finance premium, bank leverage, entrepreneurial leverage and other variables in US data better than a BGG-type model. A reasonably calibrated combination of balance sheet shocks produces a downturn of a magnitude similar to the "Great Recession". JEL Classification: E44, E43, E32

This paper introduces a Banking-Macro Model and estimates the linkages through a Multi-Regime VAR (MRVAR). We introduce a dynamic model which is akin to the Brunnermeier and Sannikov (BS) model (2010). The banking sector is exposed to instability due to adverse movements of asset prices and their impact on risk premia and credit spreads. In contrast to the standard model of the financial accelerator, exhibiting mean reversion, our model, similarly to BS (2010), exhibits local instability. Whereas the standard model leads, in terms of econometrics, to a one-regime VAR we argue for the use of a MRVAR. We estimate our model for EU countries with a MRVAR using a constructed financial stress index and industrial production for those countries. We undertake impulse-response studies with a MRVAR and explore regime dependency of shocks. We show that the shocks have asymmetric effects, depending on the growth regime of the economy, and on the size of the shocks. Small financial stress shocks may not matter, but large shocks are likely to have magnifying effects.

Recent developments in many industrialized countries have triggered a debate on whether monetary policy is effective when the nominal interest rate is close to zero. When the nominal interest rate hits its lower bound, the monetary authority is no longer in a position to pursue a policy of monetary easing by lowering nominal interest rates further. In this paper, I assess the implications of the zero lower bound in a DSGE model with financial frictions. The analysis shows that in a framework with financial frictions, when the interest rate is at the lower bound, the initial impact of a negative shock is amplified and the economy is more likely to plunge into a recession. I assess whether different macro policies, such as the management of expectations by the central bank or a counter-cyclical fiscal stimulus, may help recover the economy from the recession. I find that the monetary authority might alleviate the recession by targeting the price-level. Fiscal stimulus represents an alternative solution especially when the zero lower bound constraint becomes binding, as fiscal multipliers may become larger than one. In analyzing discretionary fiscal policy, this paper also focuses on two crucial aspects: the duration of the fiscal stimulus and the presence of implementation lags.

Ankara : The Department of Economics, İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University, 2012. Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 2012. Includes bibliographical references leaves 35. Following the recent financial crisis, reserve requirements have become a policy instrument preferred in many emerging markets such as China, Brazil and Turkey for various purposes. Therefore, the formulating a theoretical framework to study the policy effectiveness remains an important issue. In this thesis, I develop a DSGE model with the financial accelerator mechanism so as to see the effectiveness of reserve requirement in small open economies, especially in influencing the external imbalances. External imbalances can either be interpreted as current account imbalances or its mirroring capital account imbalances. The main channel through which the external balances play a role is via the banking sector, which is modelled as engaging in international borrowing. This framework allows examination of the responses of the external imbalances to shocks to the reserve requirement ratio As a result, higher reserve requirements make domestic borrowing cheaper than foreign borrowing and by this way, changes in net foreign liabilities create a current account surplus. Thus, a country with current account deficit can use reserve requirements to readjust its external imbalances. Dalkıran, Dilşat Tugba M.A.

This paper develops a bank model to study supply-driven contractions in credit or credit crunches. In the model, the bank is affected by financial frictions in raising external funds. These frictions imply that the bank repairs its balance sheet only gradually following a negative shock that weakens the bank's capital position. Consequently, there is persistency in the response of bank lending even when the original shock (productivity or interest rate) is i.i.d. The nonlinear nature of these financial frictions also generates (i) a precautionary motive even with risk-neutral shareholders: the bank increases its desired level of capital if risk increases; (ii) an asymmetric response of lending: negative disturbances can have a bigger impact than positive ones; and (iii) volatility clustering in risk spreads and the bank's share price.

The Chicago Fed dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model is used for policy analysis and forecasting at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. This article describes its specification and estimation, its dynamic characteristics and how it is used to forecast the US economy. In many respects the model resembles other medium scale New Keynesian frameworks, but there are several features which distinguish it: the monetary policy rule includes forward guidance, productivity is driven by neutral and investment specific technical change, multiple price indices identify inflation and there is a financial accelerator mechanism.

This paper conducts a quantitative investigation of the role of reserve requirements as a macroprudential policy tool. We build a monetary DSGE model with a banking sector in which (i) an agency problem between households and banks leads to endogenous capital constraints for banks in obtaining funds from households, (ii) banks are subject to time-varying reserve requirements that countercyclically respond to expected credit growth, (iii) households face cash-in-advance constraints, requiring them to hold real balances, and (iv) standard productivity and money growth shocks are two sources of aggregate uncertainty. We calibrate the model to the Turkish economy which is representative of using reserve requirements as a macroprudential policy tool recently. We also consider the impact of financial shocks that affect the net worth of financial intermediaries. We find that (i) the time-varying required reserve ratio rule countervails the negative effects of the financial accelerator mechanism triggered by adverse macroeconomic and financial shocks, (ii) in response to TFP and money growth shocks, countercyclical reserves policy reduces the volatilities of key real macroeconomic and financial variables compared to fixed reserves policy over the business cycle, and (iii) a time-varying reserve requirement policy is welfare superior to a fixed reserve requirement policy. The credit policy is most effective when the economy is hit by a financial shock. Time-varying required reserves policy reduces the intertemporal distortions created by the credit spreads at expense of generating higher inflation volatility, indicating an interesting trade-off between price stability and financial stability.

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.

Credit spreads are large, volatile and countercyclical, and recent empirical work suggests that risk premia, not expected credit losses, are responsible for these features. Building on the idea that corporate debt, while safe in ordinary recessions, is exposed to economic depressions, this paper embeds a trade-off theory of capital structure into a real business cycle model with a small, exogenously time-varying risk of economic disaster. The model replicates the level, volatility and cyclicality of credit spreads, and variation in the corporate bond risk premium amplifies macroeconomic fluctuations in investment, employment and GDP.

This paper studies how fiscal policy affects loan market conditions. First, it conducts a Structural Vector-Autoregression analysis showing that the bank spread responds negatively to an expansionary government spending shock, while lending increases. Second, it illustrates that these results are mimicked by a Real Business Cycle model where the bank spread is endogenized via the inclusion of a banking sector exploiting lending relationships. Third, it shows that lending relationships represent a friction that generates a financial accelerator effect in the transmission of the fiscal shock.

The recent fi nancial crisis revealed several flaws in both monetary and fi nancial regulation. Contrary to what was believed, price stability is not a suffi cient condition for financial stability. At the same time, micro-prudential regulation alone becomes insu fficient to ensure the financial stability objective. In this paper, we propose an ex-post analysis of what a central bank could have done to improve the reaction of the economy to the financial bubble. We study by means of a fi nancial accelerator DSGE model the dynamics of our economy when the central bank has, fi rst, only traditional objectives, and second, when an additional financial stability objective is added. Overall, results indicate that a more aggressive monetary policy would have had little success in improving the response of the economy to the financial bubble, as the actions of the central bank would have remained limited by the use of a single instrument, the interest rate., La crise financi ère r écente a r év el é plusieurs défaillances dans la r églementation mon étaire et fi nanci ère. Contrairement a ce que l'on croyait, la stabilit é des prix n'est pas une condition su ffisante pour assurer aussi la stabilit é financi ère. En même temps, la réglementation micro-prudentielle s'est av ér ée elle aussi insu ffisante pour assurer l'objectif de stabilit é financi ère. Dans cet article, nous proposons une analyse ex-post de ce qu'une banque centrale aurait pu faire afi n d'am éliorer la r éaction de l' économie à la bulle fi nanci ère. Nous étudions à l'aide d'un mod èle DSGE avec acc élérateur financier la dynamique de notre économie lorsque la banque centrale a, d'abord, seulement des objectifs traditionnels, et ensuite, quand un objectif supplémentaire, celui de stabilit é fi nanci ère, est rajout é. Dans l'ensemble, les r ésultats indiquent qu'une politique mon étaire plus agressive aurait eu peu de succ ès dans l'am élioration de la r éaction de l' économie aux chocs financiers, car les actions de la banque centrale auraient été limit ées par l'utilisation d'un instrument unique, le taux d'int erêt.

Malaysia was hit hard by the global financial crisis of 2008-09. Anticipating the downturn that would follow the episode of extreme financial turbulence, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) let the exchange rate depreciate as capital flowed out, and preemptively cut the policy rate by 150 basis points. Against this backdrop, this paper tries to quantify how much deeper the recession would have been without the BNM's monetary policy response. Taking the most intense year of the crisis as our baseline (2008:Q4-2009:Q3), counterfactual simulations indicate that rather the actual outcome of a -2.9 percent contraction, growth would have been -3.4 percent if the BNM had not implemented countercyclical and discretionary interest rate cuts. Furthermore, had a fixed exchange rate regime been in place, simulations indicate that output would have contracted by -5.5 percent over the same four-quarter period. In other words, exchange rate flexibility and the interest rate cuts implemented by the BNM helped substantially soften the impact of the global financial crisis on the Malaysian economy. These counterfactual experiments are based on a structural model estimated using Malaysian data.

The recent global financial crisis has increased interest in macroeconomic models that incorporate financial linkages. Here, we compare the simulation properties of five medium-sized general equilibrium models used in eurosystem central banks which incorporate such linkages. The financial frictions typically considered are the financial accelerator mechanism (convex 'spread' costs related to firms’ leverage ratios) and collateral constraints (based on asset values). The harmonized shocks we consider illustrate the workings and mechanisms underlying the financial-macro linkages embodied in the models. We also look at historical shock decompositions of real GDP growth across the models since 2005 in order to shed light on the common driving factors underlying the recent financial crisis. In these exercises, the models share qualitatively similar and interpretable features. This gives us confidence that we have some broad understanding of the mechanisms involved. In addition, we also survey the current and developing trends in the literature on financial frictions.

In this paper we build on the network-based financial accelerator model of Delli Gatti et al. (2010) , modelling the firms' financial structure following the “dynamic trade-off theory”, instead of the “packing order theory”. Moreover, we allow for multiperiodal debt structure and consider multiple bank-firm links based on a myopic preferred-partner choice. In case of default, we also consider the loss given default rate (LGDR). We find many results: (i) if leverage increases, the economy is riskier; (ii) a higher leverage pro-cyclicality has a destabilizing effect; (iii) a pro-cyclical leverage weakens the monetary policy effect; (iv) a central bank that wants to increase the interest rate should previously check if the banking system is well capitalized; (v) an increase of the reserve coefficient has an impact similar to that produced by raising the policy rate, but for the enlargement of bank reserves that improves the resilience of the banking system to shocks.

We develop a optimal rules-based interpretation of the 'three pillars macroeconomic policy framework': a combination of a freely floating exchange rate, an explict target for inflation, and a mechanism than ensures a stable government debt-GDP ratio around a specified long run. We show how such monetary-fiscal rules need to be adjusted to accommodate specific features of emerging market economies.The model takes the form of two-blocs, a DSGE emerging small open economy interacting with the rest of the world and features, in particular, financial frictions. It is calibrated using India and US data. Alongside the optimal Ramsey policy benchmark, we model the three pillars as simple monetary and fiscal rules including and both domestic and CPI inflation targeting interest rate rules. A comparison with a fixed exchange rate regime is ade. We find that domestic inflation targeting is superior to partially or implicitly (through a CPI inflation target) or fully attempting to stabilizing the exchange rate. Financial frictions require fiscal policy to play a bigger role and lead to an increase in the costs associated with simple rules as opposed to the fully optimal policy. These policy prescriptions contrast with the monetary-fiscal policy stance of the Indian authorities.

This paper adds a highly-leveraged financial sector to the Ramsey model of economic growth and shows that this causes the economy to behave in a highly volatile manner: doing this strongly augments the macroeconomic effects of aggregate productivity shocks. Our model is built on the financial accelerator approach of Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (BGG), in which leveraged goods-producers, subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks, borrow from a competitive financial sector. In the present paper, by contrast, it is the financial institutions which are leveraged and subject to idiosyncratic productivity shocks. Financial institutions can only obtain their funds by paying an interest rate above the risk-free rate, and this risk premium is anti-cyclical, and so augments the effects of shocks. Our parameterisation, based on US data, is one in which the leverage of the financial sector is two and a half times that of the goods-producers in the BGG model. This causes a much more significant augmentation of aggregate productivity shocks than that which is found in the BGG model.

In light of the recent, global financial crisis, countries have discussed regulating firm leverage. Many firms and households were overleveraged during the crisis and such leverage has been blamed for exacerbating a debt-deflation crisis. By limiting the amount of debt that financial firms can carry, regulators hope to prevent future debt-deflation crises. Restricting the financing of firms, however, may have negative effects. According to financial accelerator theory, investment is tied to net worth. If firms are prohibited from taking on debt, the relationship between investment and equity prices is stronger, as firms must issue equity to raise capital. Thus, when economic conditions are poor, investment drops precipitously. As a result, limiting leverage may deepen recessions, exacerbating the volatility of the business cycle. The development of an interest-free financial system under Islamic finance offers insight into the effects of a leverage constraint. To comply with Islamic financing constraints, Islamic firms have developed financial products with characteristics of both equity and debt, altering their optimal capital structure. This paper attempts to measure the impact of Islamic finance on financial crises and the volatility of the business cycle via capital structure. The results show that Islamic, interest-free finance decreases crises by decreasing the total amount of external debt liabilities. Meanwhile, the models show no significant impact of Islamic finance upon the volatility of the business cycle. Thus, regulations limiting leverage and decreasing the tax advantage of debt may limit financial crises with little adverse effect upon business cycles.

The interaction between housing prices and household borrowing in Norway is estimated in a simultaneous setting in the long and the short run.The long run dependence is analyzed within a cointegrated vector autoregression in real housing prices, real disposable household income and real household debt, conditioning on the real after tax interest rate, the number of house transactions and the volume of housing capital. We identify two cointegrating equations which determine equilibrium housing prices and household debt, respectively. The long run equations are embedded in a system of two error-correction equations which is estimated simultaneously. The model yields meaningful short and long term effects when estimated on the sample 1986q2-2008q4 and impulse responses demonstrate that there are selfreinforcing feedback effects between the two variables of interest.

The interaction between housing prices and household borrowing in Norway is estimated in a simultaneous setting in the long and the short run. The long run dependence is analyzed within a cointegrated vector autoregression in real housing prices, real disposable household income and real household debt, conditioning on the real after tax interest rate, the number of house transactions and the volume of housing capital. We identify two cointegrating equations which determine equilibrium housing prices and household debt, respectively. The long run equations are embedded in a system of two error-correction equations which is estimated simultaneously. The model yields meaningful short and long term effects when estimated on the sample 1986q2-2008q4 and impulse responses demonstrate that there are self reinforcing feedback effects between the two variables of interest.

Since the publication of Keynes' “General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money” in 1936 many new ideas and solution concepts for macroeconomic problems emerged, disappeared, and were combined in order to appropriately describe macroeconomic phenomena. Nowadays, New Keynesian frameworks are the workhorse models for monetary macroeconomics. These models combine elements of the Real Business Cycle literature such as rational expectations, microfoundations, and the concept of the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium with Keynesian elements such as nominal price rigidities and market imperfections. However, we claim that New Keynesian models still have some weaknesses. Therefore, this thesis contributes to the literature by providing - to our mind - important extensions of the baseline New Keynesian model and by analyzing new aspects of monetary and fiscal policy. First, we provide a New Keynesian framework which incorporates an oligopolistic banking sector where banks endogenously enter and leave the market. The resulting model generates significant amplification and persistence effects and depicts the empirically observed counter-cyclical nature of bank mark-ups. Second, we develop a New Keynesian framework where the mass of firms is endogeneously determined. In contrast to the recent literature, the entry and exit mechanism is based on the assumption of heterogeneity across firms. The resulting model performs better than existing frameworks with an endogenous mass of firms with respect to the generated second moments. Third, we incorporate the time-inconsistency problem a la Kydland/Prescott-Barrro/Gordon in a New Keynesian framework. In contrast to the original framework, this enables us to consider the demand side of the economy and to abstract from the assumption that the central bank can directly control for the inflation rate. Fourth, traditional New Keynesian approaches analyze the impacts of fiscal stimuli on standard measures of economic activity such as GDP, employment, and capital investment but neglect their impact on the mass of firms operating in the market. However, we show that the mass of firms is an important dimension for evaluating fiscal policy.

This paper proposes a framework for studying the boom and bust in Finland in the late 1980s and early 1990s. We develop a small open economy DSGE model with balance sheet-constrained firms a la BGG and calibrate it to the Finnish economy. We use the model to simulate three events that are claimed to have played a key role in the Finnish boom-bust episode and compare the model outcome with actual Finnish data. Firstly, we assess in our DSGE framework the role of financial market deregulation in the 1980s in the boom that preceded the crises. Secondly, we use our model to evaluate the negative impact of the collapse of Soviet-Finnish trade at the beginning of 1991. Thirdly, we investigate the effect of the collapse of the fixed exchange rate regime in September 1992. We conclude that financial frictions combined with the shocks that hit the Finnish economy are able to produce a boom and a severe depression similar to the one observed in Finland in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A key finding is the crucial role played by the financial accelerator mechanism in the ability of the model to mimic the response of the Finnish economy to the shocks it encountered. A key contribution is the incorporating unconventional shocks into the model: domestic financial market shocks to capture the deregulation of the financial market; a capital obsolescence shock to model the sudden redundancy of Soviet-oriented manufacturing; and a shock from the international financial market, a country borrowing premium shock, to capture the collapse of the fixed exchange rate regime.

US data show that the external finance premium, measured by the high yield bond spread, moves countercyclically and leads movements in output by four quarters. This paper constructs a model with nominal rigidities and financial accelerator to explain this observation. The key finding of this paper is: it is agents' reaction on news about future technology changes that generates the observed countercyclical movement and lead-lag pattern of the external finance premium, while a contemporary technology shock generates a procyclical movement of the external finance premium. The variance decomposition based on the estimated model demonstrates that news shocks account for about 72% of fluctuations in the external finance premium.

This paper addresses the positive and normative implications of indexing risky debt to observable aggregate conditions. These issues are pursued within the context of the celebrated financial accelerator model of Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (1999). The principal conclusions are that the optimal degree of indexation is significant, and that the business cycle properties of the model are altered under this level of indexation.