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Working Paper
Macroeconomic Dynamics Near the ZLB : A Tale of Two Countries
We compute a sunspot equilibrium in an estimated small-scale New Keynesian model with a zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint on nominal interest rates and a full set of stochastic fundamental shocks. In this equilibrium a sunspot shock can move the economy from a regime in which inflation is close to the central bank's target to a regime in which the central bank misses its target, inflation rates are negative, and interest rates are close to zero with high probability. A nonlinear filter is used to examine whether the U.S. in the aftermath of the Great Recession and Japan in the late 1990s ...
Working Paper
Limited (Energy) Supply, Monetary Policy, and Sunspots
In a simple New Keynesian open economy setting, we analyze how local input shortages influence policy transmission and equilibrium determinacy. Shortages increase the elasticity of the local price of the scarce factor to domestic economic activity, affecting the cyclicality of marginal costs and incomes. As a result, the slope of both the Phillips and the IS curve is altered, crucially influencing monetary and fiscal policy transmission. These changes are affected by factor ownership and propensities to consume. Theoretically, shortages can also raise the risk of self-fulfilling fluctuations ...
Working Paper
Self-Fulfilling Credit Cycles
In U.S. data 1981?2012, unsecured firm credit moves procyclically and tends to lead GDP, while secured firm credit is acyclical; similarly, shocks to unsecured firm credit explain a far larger fraction of output fluctuations than shocks to secured credit. In this paper we develop a tractable dynamic general equilibrium model in which unsecured firm credit arises from self-enforcing borrowing constraints, preventing an efficient capital allocation among heterogeneous firms. Unsecured credit rests on the value that borrowers attach to a good credit reputation which is a forward-looking ...
Discussion Paper
Anatomy of the Bank Runs in March 2023
Runs have plagued the banking system for centuries and returned to prominence with the bank failures in early 2023. In a traditional run—such as depicted in classic photos from the Great Depression—depositors line up in front of a bank to withdraw their cash. This is not how modern bank runs occur: today, depositors move money from a risky to a safe bank through electronic payment systems. In a recently published staff report, we use data on wholesale and retail payments to understand the bank run of March 2023. Which banks were run on? How were they different from other banks? And how ...