The macroeconomics of firms' savings

The authors document that the U.S. non-financial corporate sector became a net lender in the 2000s, using aggregate and firm-level data. They develop a structural model with investment, debt, and equity. Debt is fiscally advantageous but subject to a no-default borrowing constraint. Equity allows the firm to suspend dividends when the cash flow is negative. Firms accumulate financial assets for precautionary reasons, yet value equity as partial insurance against shocks. The calibrated model replicates the prevalence of net savings in the period 2000-2007 and attributes the rise in corporate savings over the past 40 years to lower dividend taxes.Corporations ; Debt ; Equity ; Dividends ; Taxation

International Capital Flows in a World of Greater Financial Integration

International capital flows have increased dramatically since the 1980s, with much of the increase being due to trade in equity and debt markets. Such developments are often attributed to the increased integration of world financial markets. We present a model that allows us to examine how greater integration in world financial markets affects the structure of asset ownership and the behavior of international capital flows. Our model predicts that international capital flows are large (in absolute value) and very volatile during the early stages of financial integration when international asset trading is concentrated in bonds. As integration progresses and households gain access to world equity markets, the size and volatility of international bond flows fall dramatically but continue to exceed the size and volatility of international equity flows. We also find that variations in the equity risk premia account for almost all of the international portfolio flows in bonds and equities. We argue that both effects arise naturally as a result of increased risk sharing facilitated by greater financial integration. The paper also makes a methodological contribution to the literature on dynamic general equilibrium asset-pricing. We present a new technique for solving a dynamic general equilibrium model with production, portfolio choice and incomplete marketsPortfolio Choice; Financial Integration; Incomplete Markets

Volatility and growth

The authors study the empirical, cross-country relationship between macroeconomic volatility and long-run economic growth. They address four central questions: 1) Does the volatility-growth link depend on country and policy characteristics, such as the level of development or trade openness? 2) Does this link reflect a statistically and economically significant causal effect from volatility to growth? 3) Has this relationship been stable over time and has it become stronger in recent decades? 4) Does the volatility-growth connection actually reveal the impact of crises rather than the overall effect of cyclical fluctuations? The authors find that macroeconomic volatility, and long-run economic growth are indeed negatively related. This negative link is exacerbated in countries that are poor, institutionallyunderdeveloped, undergoing intermediate stages of financial development, or unable to conduct counter-cyclical fiscal policies. They find evidence that this negative relationship actually reflects the harmful effect from volatility to growth. Furthermore, the authors find that the negative effect of volatility on growth has become considerably larger in the past two decades, and that it is mostly due to large recessions rather than normal cyclical fluctuations.Economic Conditions and Volatility,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Markets and Market Access,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Economic Theory&Research,Achieving Shared Growth,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Governance Indicators,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Economic Conditions and Volatility

Financial Integration, Macroeconomic Volatility and Welfare

This paper studies the effects of financial integration on macroeconomic volatility and welfare. We examine a two-sector (tradable and nontradable), twocountry world economy with production in which both stocks and bonds are traded internationally, but markets are incomplete. The effects of integration are examined by comparing the equilibrium properties of the model under three financial configurations: autarky, low integration and high integration. The model predicts a non-monotonic relationship between the degree of financial integration and the volatility of several macroeconomic variables. Greater integration is initially associated with more volatile consumption and output, but as integration proceeds further volatility declines. We also find that while increased integration allows for significantly greater risk-sharing between countries, the improvement in welfare can be very small.Globalization; Incomplete Markets; Volatility; Welfare

Limited Participation in International Business Cycle Models: A Formal Evaluation

In this paper, we argue that limited asset market participation (LAMP) plays an important role in explaining international business cycles. We show that when LAMP is introduced into an otherwise standard model of international business cycles, the performance of the model improves significantly, especially in matching cross-country correlations. To perform formal evaluation of the models we develop a novel statistical procedure that adapts the statistical framework of Vuong (1989) to DSGE models. Using this methodology, we show that the improvements brought out by LAMP are statistically significant, leading a model with LAMP to outperform a representative agent model. Furthermore, when LAMP is introduced, a model with complete markets is found to do as well as a model with no trade in financial assets -- a well-known favorite in the literature. Our results remain robust to the inclusion of investment specific technology shocks.international business cycles, incomplete markets, limited asset market participation

International Capital Flows, Returns and World Financial Integration

International capital flows have increased dramatically since the 1980s, with much of the increase being due to trade in equity and debt markets. Such developments are often attributed to the increased integration of world financial markets. We present a model that allows us to examine how greater integration in world financial markets affects the behavior of international capital flows and financial returns. Our model predicts that international capital flows are large (in absolute value) and very volatile during the early stages of financial integration when international asset trading is concentrated in bonds. As integration progresses and households gain access to world equity markets, the size and volatility of international bond flows fall dramatically but continue to exceed the size and volatility of international equity flows. This is the natural outcome of greater risk sharing facilitated by increased integration. We find that the equilibrium flows in bonds and stocks are larger than their empirical counterparts, and are largely driven by variations in equity risk premia. The paper also makes a methodological contribution to the literature on dynamic general equilibrium asset-pricing. We implement a new technique for solving a dynamic general equilibrium model with production, portfolio choice and incomplete markets.

Solving General Equilibrium Models with Incomplete Markets and Many Assets

This paper presents a new numerical method for solving general equilibrium models with many assets. The method can be applied to models where there are heterogeneous agents, time-varying investment opportunity sets, and incomplete markets. It also can be used to study models where the equilibrium dynamics are non-stationary. We illustrate how the method is used by solving a one-- and two-sector versions of a two--country general equilibrium model with production. We check the accuracy of our method by comparing the numerical solution to the one-sector model against its known analytic properties. We then apply the method to the two-sector model where no analytic solution is available.

Comparison of Misspecified Calibrated Models: The Minimum Distance Approach

This paper proposes several testing procedures for comparison of misspecified calibrated models. The proposed tests are of the Vuong-type (Vuong, 1989; Rivers and Vuong, 2002). In our framework, the econometrician selects values for model's parameters in order to match some characteristics of data with those implied by the theoretical model. We assume that all competing models are misspecified, and suggest a test for the null hypothesis that they provide equivalent fit to data characteristics, against the alternative that one of the models is a better approximation. We consider both nested and non-nested cases. We also relax the dependence of models' ranking on the choice of a weight matrix by suggesting averaged and sup-norm procedures. The methods are illustrated by comparing the cash-in-advance and portfolio adjustment cost models in their ability to match the impulse responses of output and inflation to money growth shocks.misspecified models; calibration; matching; minimum distance estimation

Supplement to "Comparison of Misspecified Calibrated Models"

This paper contains supplemental material to Hnatkovska, Marmer, and Tang (2009) "Comparison of Misspecified Calibrated Models: The Minimum Distance Approach".misspecified models; calibration; minimum distance estimation

Supplement to "Castes and Labor Mobility"

This document contains supplemental material to Hnatkovska, Lahiri and Paul (2010) paper. It presents detailed estimation results underlying the Tables and Figures in the main text.