Financial Friction, Capital Reallocation and Expectation-Driven Business Cycles

In this paper, we show that news on future technological improvement can trigger an immediate economic expansion in a model with financial friction on capital allocation. The arrivial of good news on future technology reduces such frictions and generates significant increase in current Total Factor Productivity via capital reallocation. This triggers an immediate boom in output, consumption, investment and hours worked. Our empirical evidence using firm-level data supports strongly the above mechanisms for news to affect current aggregate productivity.Financial Friction; Capital Reallocation; Business Cycle

Financial Frictions on Capital Allocation: A Transmission Mechanism of TFP Fluctuations

This paper provides a theory of financial frictions as a transmission mechanism for primitive shocks to translate into aggregate TFP fluctuations. In our model, financial frictions distort existing capital allocation across different production units, rather than investment in new capital. News shocks on future technology improvement are introduced as a device to identify TFP fluctuations originating from this mechanism. Our simulation shows that variations in financial frictions in response to news shocks can generate sizable fluctuations in aggregate TFP and, thus, business cycles before the actual technology change is realized. Using a combined dataset from Compustat and IBES, we find that the empirical responses of capital acquisition to prospects about future profitability are significantly larger for firms more likely to be financially constrained, while such a pattern does not exist for new capital investment. Furthermore, capital acquisition of constrained firms is found to be more procyclical than that for unconstrained ones. Our evidence thus provides strong support for the importance of financial frictions on capital allocation as the transmission mechanism proposed by our theory.Financial Friction, Capital Reallocation, TFP Fluctuation, News Shock

Japanese Saving Rate

Japanese and U.S. saving rates have been significantly different over the last forty years. Can a standard growth model explain this difference? The answer is yes. Our results indicate that both an infinite horizon, complete markets setup and an overlapping generations model with incomplete markets are about equally able to generate saving rates that are remarkably similar to the data during 1961-1998. Our quantitative findings identify changes in the growth rate of total factor productivity and the low initial capital stock as the main factors generating the time series behavior of the net national saving rate in Japan. We show that if the Japanese had faced the U.S. TFP and initial conditions, their saving rate would have looked very similar to that of the U.S. households. In other words, it seems that there is nothing peculiar about the Japanese saving behavior.Neoclassical Growth Model, Saving Behavior, Total Factor Productivity

Secular Movements in U.S. Saving and Consumption

The U.S. national saving rate has been declining since the 1960s while the share of consumption in output has been increasing. We explore if a standard growth model can explain the secular movements observed in this time period. Our quantitative findings indicate that the standard neoclassical growth model is able to generate saving rates and consumption that are remarkably similar to the data during 1960-2004U.S. consumption, saving, TFP

Secular Trends in U.S Saving and Consumption

National saving rate in the U.S. has been declining since the 1960s while the share of consumption in output has been increasing. We explore if a standard growth model can explain the secular trends observed in this time period. Our results indicate that the standard neoclassical growth model is able to generate saving rates and consumption that are remarkably similar to the data during 1960-2004. Our quantitative findings identify the growth rate of total factor productivity as the main factor generating the secular trends in the behavior of consumption and saving in the U.SConsumption, Saving

Assessing the macroeconomic impact of bank intermediation shocks: A structural approach

We take a structural approach to assessing the empirical importance of shocks to the supply of bank-intermediated credit in affecting macroeconomic fluctuations. First, we develop a theoretical model to show how credit supply shocks can be transmitted into disruptions in the production economy. Second, we use the unique micro-banking data to identify and support the model's key mechanism. Third, we find that the output effect of credit supply shocks is not only economically and statistically significant but also consistent with the vector autogression evidence. Our mode estimation indicates that a negative one-standard-deviation shock to credit supply generates a loss of output by 1 percent

Debt in the U.S. Economy

In 2011, the publicly held debt-to-GDP ratio in the United States reached 68% and is expected to continue rising. Many proposals to curb the government deficit and the resulting debt are being discussed. In this paper, we use the standard neoclassical growth model to examine the future path of output, budget deficits, and debt in the U.S. economy under different tax policies. While this framework is relatively simple, it incorporates the general equilibrium effects of tax policy, which are often missing from the Congressional Budget Office projections. Our results show that debt-to-GNP ratios above 100% are likely to continue into the future and that even small labor supply elasticities have a significant impact on these projections. We also find that labor income tax rates higher than 40% are needed for the deficit-to-GNP ratio to return to its historical level in the long run. Such high tax rates, however, result in about 10% lower per capita GNP and large welfare costs at the steady state compared to the historical tax rates

Trends and Cycles in China's Macroeconomy

We make four contributions in this paper. First, we provide a core of macroeconomic time series usable for systematic research on China. Second, we document, through various empirical methods, the robust findings about striking patterns of trend and cycle. Third, we build a theoretical model that accounts for these facts. Fourth, the model's mechanism and assumptions are corroborated by institutional details, disaggregated data, and banking time series, all of which are distinctive Chinese characteristics. We argue that preferential credit policy for promoting heavy industries accounts for the unusual cyclical patterns as well as the post-1990s economic transition featured by the persistently rising investment rate, the declining labor income share, and a growing foreign surplus. The departure of our theoretical model from standard ones offers a constructive framework for studying China's modern macroeconomy

Financial Friction, Capital Reallocation and Expectation-Driven Business Cycles

In this paper, we show that news on future technological improvement can trigger an immediate economic expansion in a model with financial friction on capital allocation. The arrivial of good news on future technology reduces such frictions and generates significant increase in current Total Factor Productivity via capital reallocation. This triggers an immediate boom in output, consumption, investment and hours worked. Our empirical evidence using firm-level data supports strongly the above mechanisms for news to affect current aggregate productivity