Three Essays In Macroeconomics Implications Of The Great Recession For Fiscal And Monetary Policy

In this dissertation, my research aims at dwelling on the questions, at understanding and explaining -- as a follow of current strand of literature on financial frictions -- the mechanisms that allowed the imperfect and perfect credit intermediation to affect the dynamics of economy and the transmission of monetary policy, and providing a new theoretical formulation for evaluating the unconventional monetary policy. To do this, I first considered the impact of financial intermediation on the analysis of central bank transparency issue (Chapter 2). ln Chapter 3, I focused on the role played by the imperfect financial intermediation/financial frictions in the transmission of shocks : through which mechanisms, do the presence of balance-sheet constraint financial intermediaries affect the effect of shocks on the macroeconomy? Finally, in Chapter 4, 1 construct an theoreticalmodel to analyze an important issue which have net been carried out in existing literature: the transmission mechanism of the central bank's large-scale purchase of mortgage-backed securities. ln this chapter, I first simulated a financial crisis to see if the model is able to replicate some of the most important stylized facts of the Great Recession. Then, basing on the simulated crisis, I examine the efficacy and transmission mechanism of large scale purchases of MBS through comparing these purchases to the purchases of corporate bonds. This experiment is conducted in two credit market configurations, i.e., a partially and a totally segmented credit market. The latter case of market condition is considered by many economists as main obstacle that impedes the nominal functioning of the financial markets. ln this work, we have obtained rich and important findings for guiding the use of unconventional monetary policy. The following parts briefly present the findinqs of the thesis.

This book presents a notable group of macroeconomists who describe the unprecedented events and often extraordinary policies put in place to limit the economic damage suffered during the Great Recession and then to put the economy back on track. Contributers include Barry Eichengreen; Gary Burtless; Donald Kohn; Laurence Ball, J. Bradford DeLong, and Lawrence H. Summers; and Kathryn M.E. Dominguez.

This dissertation is composed of three essays that study the macroeconomic and financial causes of the Great Recession. The first chapter focuses on understanding some of the business cycle dynamics of different regions in the United States. In particular, I seek to understand what shocks and frictions are the drivers of consumption and employment differences across subnational economies, particularly states. I find that the shocks and frictions that drive the aggregate business cycle are not enough to understand regional business cycle dynamics. In this chapter I develop methodological contributions that can help researchers guide the construction of models whose goal is to understand regional business cycle dynamics and how it relates to aggregate business cycle dynamics. The second chapter focuses on understanding the link between regional and aggregate business cycles. We find that that the shocks that we can identify using cross-sectional variation are insufficient to understand the joint dynamics of prices, wages and employment at business cycle frequencies. In particular, demand shocks identified using cross-region variation are insufficient to explain the persistent decline in aggregate employment. This chapter develops methodological contributions to identify shocks in macroeconomic models and to construct regional indexes for prices and wages. The third chapter is an empirical analysis of the non-agency mortgage backed securities market, which has been at the core of the explanations of the causes of the Great Recession. By carefully studying the cash flows, returns, and how they relate to the credit ratings, we find that contrary to the conventional narrative of the crisis, AAA-rated subprime mortgage backed securities performed remarkably well. This calls into question some key aspects of the explanations that have been given as triggers of the crisis of 2008, and points at the need to better understand the forces behind this event in order to have a more accurate understanding and be able to prescribe appropriate policies.

The severity of the Great Recession and the subsequent stagnation caught many economists by surprise. But a group of Keynesian scholars warned for some years that strong forces were leading the US toward a deep, persistent downturn. This book collects essays about these events from prominent macroeconomists who developed a perspective that predicted the broad outline and many specific aspects of the crisis. From this point of view, the recovery of employment and revival of strong growth requires more than short-term monetary easing and temporary fiscal stimulus. Economists and policy makers need to explore how the process of demand formation failed after 2007 and where demand will come from going forward. Successive chapters address the sources and dynamics of demand, the distribution and growth of wages, the structure of finance and challenges from globalization, and inform recommendations for monetary and fiscal policies to achieve a more efficient and equitable society.

This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter studies the repo market crash in 2008-2009, which was a catalyst for the Great Recession. I evaluate the quantitative importance of the following three factors in that crash: a drop in the price of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), the liquidity drying up caused by asymmetric information in the RMBS market, and the run by repo lenders induced by changes in the fundamentals. On the theoretical side, the main contribution is to construct a tractable and parsimonious model to integrate the RMBS market with asymmetric information and the repo market with strategic complementary lenders. The two markets are connected by buyers in the RMBS market who use RMBS as collateral for borrowing in the repo market. I characterize the stochastic equilibrium of the economy where the quality of RMBS follows a Markov process. With calibration and simulation, the model yields the following quantitative results. First, the liquidity drying up caused by asymmetric information plays a crucial role in every aspect of the repo market crash. It explains 30% of the increase in haircut, 13% of the drop in total repo outstanding, and a large part of the increase in repo spread. Second, throughout the crisis, the fundamental-based run significantly affects the repo rate but only has a small effect on the repo haircut. Third, in addition to the three factors, the general equilibrium effect generated from the interactions between the RMBS market and the repo market explains 33% of the drop in total repo outstanding. I discuss the policy implications of these findings. The second chapter, written jointly with Neil Wallace, studies the optimal currency provision when the replacement of worn currency is costly. In The Mechanism of Exchange, Jevons recommended that the government bear the cost of replacing worn gold coins with new coins instead of having the holders of worn coins bear the cost. We study the optima of a minimally interesting model: money is essential and indivisible so that physical depreciation is not neutral, and there are alternative ways of financing the costly replacement of worn currency. The optima contradict the Jevons proposal. People with worn currency bear a cost that makes them indifferent between getting a new unit and discarding the useless worn unit, a cost that exceeds the physical cost of replacement. The third chapter, jointly written with Guanliang Hu, Guoxuan Ma, and Neil Wallace, studies the conventional monetary policy in overlapping generation models. Conventional monetary policy involves actions by the monetary and fiscal authorities: the former sets a nominal interest rate and the latter sets lump-sum taxes to finance the implied flow of interest payments on government debt. We show that absent any other frictions the magnitude of the nominal interest rate give rise to asset substitution between government debt and capital--substitution which has both real and nominal effects.

My dissertation covers three loosely connected topics in Macroeconomics and Banking. The first chapter, titled Effect of Failed Bank Mergers During the Crisis on Cost Efficiency, examines the effect of merging with failed banks during the crisis period on the acquiring banks' cost X-efficiency. Between December 31, 2006, and Decem- ber 31, 2010, the number of U.S. commercial banks and savings institutions declined significantly because of failures. The majority of failed banks were acquired by the existing banks. I utilize the Fourier flexible cost function form to estimate the cost X-efficiency, and find out that merging with failed banks does negatively affect the cost X-efficiency of the acquiring bank. Although the local market concentration does not change much after the merger, the decrease in cost X-efficiency may still indicate the increase of market power for acquiring banks. With the evolving technology, the cost of obtaining banking service from distant providers fell a lot compared with 30 or 40 years ago. Local market concentration may no longer be a good measure of market competitiveness, and the FDIC may need to develop other more relevant measures regarding merger regulations. The second chapter, titled Financial Regulation and Stability of the Banking System, builds a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model which includes both regulated and unregulated banks to study the effect of the capital requirement, which is imposed only on regulated banks, on the stability of the financial system. One of the most distinctive features of the recent financial crisis is the turmoil of the financial market. Financial institutions with high leverage were the first to bear the brunt, and the chain effect caused by their bankruptcy led the economy into a prolonged depression. In order to stabilize the financial market and prevent financial institutions from taking excessive risks, the government imposed capital requirements on the regulated banks. However, a large number of financial institutions, which perform similar functions as regulated banks, are not under government regulation. In this paper, I build a model which includes both regulated banks, referred to as commercial banks, and unregulated banks, referred to as shadow banks, to study and quantify the effects of capital requirements on the stability of the financial system. I find that when the capital requirement is high enough to help commercial banks to survive the bank runs, it does help to alleviate the negative impact of the crisis. However, if the capital requirement is not high enough, increasing capital requirements only causes decreased net output but does not help to stabilize consumption and capital price during the crisis. The third chapter is titled The Effect of Monetary Policy on Asset Price Volatility: Evidence from Time-Varying Parameter Vector Autoregression Approach. The great financial recession in 2007 - 2009 reactivated the discussion of the effect and the focus of monetary policies. Some researchers argue that whether the monetary authority should take action to fight against the asset price bubbles prior to 2007 aside from targeting inflation and GDP gap. However, one important fact that often get ne- glected is that the volatility of the financial market is also closely related to monetary policy shocks, and it has an important impact on economic output and unemployment in the economy. This paper utilizes two empirical methods, constant parameter structural vector auto-regression and time-varying parameter vector auto-regression, to study the relationship between monetary policy and financial market volatility. I find that under these two different methods, the financial market volatility responds differently to the monetary policy shocks.

"This dissertation consists of three essays concerning the macroeconomic implications of financial market frictions that limit the ability of firms to obtain external finance. Each of the three chapters employs a theoretical macroeconomic model, combined with some empirical analysis, to study unanswered questions in the literature related to the importance of these financial market frictions for the wider economy. The three chapters consider, in turn, the effect of banking crises on investment, output and employment, the implications of financial market frictions for optimal capital taxation, and the effect of banking deregulation on the distribution of income. The first chapter studies the long slumps in output and employment following banking crises. In a panel of OECD and emerging economies, I find that recessions are associated with larger initial drops in investment and more persistent drops in output if they occur simultaneously with banking crises. Furthermore, the banking crises that are followed by more persistent output slumps are associated with particularly large initial drops in investment. I show that these patterns can arise in a model where a financial shock temporarily increases the costs of external finance for investing entrepreneurs. This leads to a drop in investment and a persistent slump in output. Critical to the model is the distinction between different types of capital with different depreciation rates. Intangible capital and equipment have high depreciation rates, leading these stocks to drop substantially when investment falls after a financial shock. If wages display some rigidity, this induces a slump in output and employment that persists for roughly a decade, through the contribution of the decline in equipment and intangibles to declining production and labor demand. I find that this mechanism can account for almost a third of the persistent drop in output and employment in the US Great Recession (2007-2014). In the model, TFP and government spending shocks lead to relatively smaller declines in investment and less persistent drops in output; so the model is also consistent with the more transitory output drops seen after non-financial recessions, where such shocks may have been more important. The second chapter, based on work co-written with Corina Boar, considers the implications of financial market frictions for optimal linear capital taxation, in a setting where the government is concerned with redistribution. By including financial frictions, we emphasize the effect of a new channel affecting the equity-efficiency trade-off of redistribution: taxes affect the allocative efficiency of capital and, ultimately, total factor productivity. We find that high tax rates can be optimal, provided that they are applied to wealth, rather than risky capital. Under plausible parameter values, we find that the optimal tax on risky capital is lower than that on wealth, and roughly in line with current U.S. levels. This suggests welfare gains from taxing wealth at a higher rate than risky capital. The third chapter, based on work co-written with Corina Boar and Yicheng Wang, studies the effect of banking deregulation in the US on the distribution of income, from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. We focus on the effect of the removal of interstate banking and branching restrictions over the 1970-1994 period. We present a theoretical model based on Greenwood and Jovanovic (1990) to illustrate the channels through which this deregulation may affect the income distribution. In the model, income inequality rises after banking deregulation for some values of the parameters--because deregulation decreases the cost of borrowing, which primarily benefits wealthy firm-owners. We empirically estimate the effect of interstate banking and branching deregulation on income inequality by exploiting variations in the timing of deregulation across states. We find that the removal of banking restrictions increased the Gini coefficient by 6 percent in the long run."--Pages ix-xi.

My dissertation is comprised of three papers on the causes and consequences of the U.S. Great Recession. The emphasis is on the role that financial frictions play in magnifying financial shocks, as well as in informing the effectiveness of potential policies. Chapter 1, "Financial Frictions, Investment Delay and Asset Market Interventions," co-authored with Shouyong Shi, studies the role of investment delay in propagating different types of financial shocks, and how this role impacts the effectiveness of asset market interventions. The topic is motivated by the observation that, during the Great Recession, governments conducted large-scale asset market interventions. The aim was to increase the level of liquidity in the asset market and make it easier for firms to obtain financing. However, firms were observed to have delayed investment by hoarding liquid funds, part of which were obtained through the interventions. We construct a dynamic macro model to incorporate financial frictions and investment delay. Investment is undertaken by entrepreneurs who face liquidity frictions in the equity market and a collateral constraint in the debt market. After calibrating the model to the U.S. data, we quantitatively examine how aggregate activity is affected by two types of financial shocks: (i) a shock to equity liquidity, and (ii) a shock to entrepreneurs' borrowing capacity. We then analyze the effectiveness of government interventions in the asset market after such financial shocks. In particular, we compare the effects of government purchases of private equity and of private debt in the open market. In addition, we examine how these effects of government interventions depend on the option to delay investment. In Chapter 2, "Housing Liquidity and Unemployment: The Role of Firm Financial Frictions," I build upon the role that firms' ability to obtain funding plays in the severity of the Great Recession. I focus specifically on how the housing crisis reduced the ability of firms to obtain funding, and the consequences for unemployment. An important feature I focus on is the role of housing liquidity, or how easy it is to sell or buy a house. I analyze how an initial fall in housing market liquidity, linked to rising foreclosure costs for banks, affects labor market outcomes, which can have further feedback effects. I focus on the role that firm financial frictions play in these feedback effects. To this end, I construct a dynamic macro model that incorporates frictional housing and labor markets, as well as firm financial frictions. Mortgages are obtained from banks that incur foreclosure costs in the event of default. Foreclosure costs also affect the ease with which firms can borrow, and this influences their hiring decisions. I calibrate the model to U.S. data, and find that a rise in foreclosure costs that generates a 10% fall in the firm loan-to-output ratio results in a 3 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate. The rise in unemployment makes it more difficult for indebted owners to avoid defaulting on their mortgage. This rise in default, on the order of 20 percent, creates further slack in the housing market by both increasing the number of houses on the market and reducing the amount of buyers. Consequently, there are large drops in housing prices and in the size of mortgage loans. Notably, when firm financial frictions are absent, I observe a counter-factual fall in the unemployment rate, which mitigates the effects on the housing market, and even results in a fall in the mortgage default rate. The results highlight the importance of the impact of the housing market crisis on a firm's willingness to hire, and how firms' limited access to credit magnifies the initial housing shock. In Chapter 3, "Housing Market Distress and Unemployment: A Dynamic Analysis," I add to the contributions of my second paper, and extend the analysis to determine the dynamic effects of the housing crisis on unemployment. In Chapter 2, I focused on comparing stationary equilibria when there is a rise in the foreclosure costs associated with mortgage default. However, a full analysis must also take into account the dynamic effects of the shock. In order to do the dynamic analysis, I modify the model in my job market paper to satisfy the conditions of block recursivity. I do this by incorporating Hedlund's (2016) technique of introducing real estate agents in the housing market that match separately with buyers and sellers. Doing this makes the model's endogenous variables independent of the distribution of households and firms. Rather, the impact of the distribution is summarized by the shadow value of housing. This greatly improves the tractability of the model, and allows me to compute the dynamic response to a fall in a bank's ability to sell a foreclosed house, thus raising the costs of mortgage default. I find that the results are largely dependent on the size and persistence of the shock, as well as the level of firm financial frictions that are present. When firm financial frictions are high, as represented by the presence of an interest rate premium charged to firms, and the initial shock is large, the shock is transferred to firms via an endogenous rise in the cost of renting capital. Firms scale back on production and reduce employment. The rise in unemployment increases the debt burden for households with large mortgages. They can try and sell, but find it difficult to do so because they must sell at a high price to be able to pay off their debt. If they fail, they are forced to default, thus further raising the mortgage costs of banks, further reducing resources to firms, and propagating the initial shock. However, the extent of the propagation is limited; once the shock wears off, the economy recovers to its pre-crisis levels within two quarters. I discuss the reasons why, and what elements would be needed for greater persistence.