ENDOGENOUS PROCYCLICAL LIQUIDITY,CAPITAL REALLOCATION,AND q

Capital reallocation is procyclical and an economic boom has a cleansing effect by shifting the distribution of firms from low quality to high quality. We explain these facts by modeling search frictions for used capital in the business cycle. The article characterizes the stochastic equilibrium analytically to prove that the liquidity and the price of reallocated capital are procyclical endogenously. We calibrate the model and construct proxies in the data for the unemployment rate of capital and the time on the market. These two variables have a strong positive relationship in both the model and the data.     

Macroeconomic Uncertainty,Fund Demand and Corporate Investment

Using a unique set of data on fund use by China’s listed companies, this paper examines how macroeconomic uncertainty works on corporate investment. The study shows that macroeconomic uncertainty affects corporate investment behavior through the three channels of external demand, liquidity demand and long-term fund demand. However, the result is influenced by expectations and can differ across firms depending on their economic cycle, shareholder character, industrial character and the financial constraints they are exposed to. Specifically, high macroeconomic uncertainty can weaken the positive roles of these channels, especially those of external demand and liquidity demand, in driving corporate investment. During economic upturns, the effect of these channels is the most evident among state-owned firms, manufacturing firms and low cash dividend firms. The lessons from this study are that macroeconomic policies should be leveraged taking account of the channels through which economic shocks find their way, and monetary policies have to be implemented by targeting microscopic fund demand.     

Financial Market Imperfections, Labour Market Imperfections and Business Cycles

A Greenwald–Stiglitz (1993a) style rational expectations business cycle model is introduced in which uncorrelated productivity shocks or monetary shocks generate autocorrelated employment fluctuations due to financial constraints. The propagation mechanism is carefully modelled: because of capital market imperfections (only standard debt contracts are traded), firms' labour demand changes in response to changes in their balance-sheet position; because of labour market imperfections (efficiency wages), employment and unemployment fluctuate in response to shifts in labour demand. The virtue of the model is its simplicity. Despite the fact that unemployment is endogenous, the dynamic behaviour of the model under rational expectations can be characterised analytically.
JEL classification : E 32     

Financial globalization and real regionalization

Over the period 1972-1986, the US business cycle was strongly correlated with the business cycle in the rest of the industrialized world. Over the period 1986-2000, international co-movement was much weaker (real regionalization). At the same time, US international asset trade has increased significantly ( financial globalization). We first document these phenomena in detail and then argue that they are related. In particular, we present a model in which financial globalization occurs endogenously in response to less correlated real shocks. Financial globalization, by enhancing cross-border capital flows, further reduces the international correlations in GDP and factor supplies. We find that both less correlated shocks and the endogenous change in international financial markets are needed to quantitatively account for the observed changes in the international business cycle.     

Intertemporal substitution and the liquidity effect in a sticky price model

The liquidity effect, defined as a decrease in nominal interest rates in response to a monetary expansion, is a major stylized fact of the business cycle. This paper first confirms that, with separable preferences, a low degree of intertemporal substitution in consumption is a necessary condition for the existence of the liquidity effect. In contrast to this result, in a model with non-separable preferences and capital accumulation it takes an implausibly high elasticity of intertemporal substitution to produce a liquidity effect. The robustness of these results to alternative degrees of nominal rigidities, capital adjustment costs and stochastic monetary processes is also analysed. We conclude that price stickiness, by itself, does not guarantee the existence of a liquidity effect.     

DISCOUNT SHOCK,PRICE–RENT DYNAMICS,AND THE BUSINESS CYCLE

The price-rent ratio in commercial real estate is highly volatile and its variation comoves with the business cycle. To account for these facts, we develop a dynamic general equilibrium model that introduces a rental market and incorporates the liquidity constraint on an individual firm's production as a key ingredient. Our estimation identifies the discount shock as the most important factor in driving price-rent dynamics and linking the dynamics in the real estate market to those in the real economy. We illustrate the importance of the liquidity premium and endogenous TFP in the nexus of the financial and real sectors.     

The endogeneity of the Optimum Currency Area criteria in East Asia

The Asian financial crisis in mid-1997 has increased interest in policies to achieve greater regional exchange rate stability in East Asia. It has renewed calls for greater monetary and exchange rate cooperation. A country's suitability to join a monetary union depends, inter alia, on the trade intensity and the business cycle synchronization with other potential members of the monetary union. However, these two Optimum Currency Area criteria are endogenous. Theoretically, the effect of increased trade integration (after the elimination of exchange fluctuations among the countries in the region) on the business cycle synchronization is ambiguous. Reduction in trade barriers can potentially increase industrial specialization by country and therefore resulting in more asymmetry business cycles from industry-specific shocks. On the other hand, increased trade integration may result in more highly correlated business cycles due to common demand shocks or intra-industry trade. If the second hypothesis is empirically verified, policy makers have little to worry about the region being unsynchronized in their business cycles as the business cycles will become more synchronized after the monetary union is formed. This paper assesses the dynamic relationships between trade, finance, specialization and business cycle synchronization for East Asian economies using a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach. The dynamic panel approach improves on previous efforts to examine the business cycle correlations — trade link using panel procedures, which control for the potential endogeneity of all explanatory variables. Based on the findings on how trade, finance and sectoral specialization have effects on the size of common shocks among countries, potential policies that can help East Asian countries move closer toward a regional currency arrangement can be suggested. The empirical results of this study suggest that there exists scope for East Asia to form a monetary union.     

Entrepreneurial ignition of the business cycle: The corporate finance of malinvestment

This paper provides an extension of the Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT) framework by integrating corporate capital structure, the monetary policy transmission channel, and capital budgeting analyses. In this manner, the paper presents the business cycle as being exogenously set up by central bank authorities, but endogenously set off by commercial banks and enterprises making use of central bank-distorted market signals. The cyclical boom is modeled as a gradual process where both latitudinal and longitudinal investment expansions are possible with either internal or external finance. Bank credit creation, although a necessary condition for igniting the boom, is diversely transmitted to the economy because of heterogeneity in entrepreneurial misjudgment, corporate capital structure strategies, and the class of projects available to the enterprises.     

Fear itself: How risk sensitive firms can give demand shocks bite

Many economists believe that recessions arise when aggregate demand is insufficient to support full employment. However, replicating this intuition within a real business cycle (RBC) model has proven surprisingly challenging. Rather than eliciting a contraction, lower consumer demand leads to greater household savings in many such models, fueling new investment and causing the economy to expand. The present paper proposes a novel way to resolve this apparent paradox: risk-averse firms. In the model to follow, cautious firms reduce their demand for investment prior to a recession. This contraction in the demand for capital overcomes the increased supply arising from consumer savings and restores intuitive business cycle behavior. In particular, the paper demonstrates that the model economy contracts when subjected to an uncertainty shock in consumer demand, mimicking a pre-recessionary environment in which firms, fearing a lack of orders, precipitate the downturn by reducing capital expenditures. These results are consistent with microeconomic evidence that uncertainty, particularly uncertainty about future demand, is the primary reason for firms shedding workers or scaling down operations in advance of an economic downturn. More generally, they imply that firm's attitudes towards risk shouldn't be ignored in modern macroeconomic models.     

The effects of foreign shocks when interest rates are at zero

In a two‐country DSGE model, the effects of foreign demand shocks on the home country are greatly amplified if the home economy is constrained by the zero lower bound on policy interest rates. This result applies even to countries that are relatively closed to trade such as the United States. Departing from many of the existing closed‐economy models, the duration of the liquidity trap is determined endogenously. Adverse foreign shocks can extend the duration of the trap, implying more contractionary effects for the home country. The home economy is more vulnerable to adverse foreign shocks if the neutral rate is low—consistent with “secular stagnation”—and trade openness is high.     

Rolling Regression Analysis of the Pástor-Stambaugh Model: Evidence from Robust Instrumental Variables

The capital asset pricing model (CAPM), Fama-French (FF), and Pástor-Stambaugh (PS) factor models are examined using a new dynamic rolling regression version of the generalized method of moments (GMM) method. This rolling regression framework not only allows us to investigate phases of the business cycle, but also permits regression estimates to vary through time due to changes in the development and efficiency of the sectors. The principal reasons for using the dynamic GMM with robust instruments is that some of these factors are measured with errors and the disturbances may be non-spherical. The CAPM appears as the most parsimonious model to explain the FF sector returns. Furthermore, the rolling GMM approach is clearly more sensitive to dynamic financial episodes than the ordinary least squares approach. In particular, liquidity has some anticipatory power, as it is able to forecast the 2007–2009 crises with heightened volatility starting in late 2005.     

Risk sharing and export performance with firm heterogeneity

We investigate how market uncertainty affects the export performance of a firm through financial frictions. We first extend Melitz's (2003) heterogeneous firm trade model by incorporating demand shocks, linking the demand uncertainties to the financing costs of firms. In this extension, the default probability is endogenously determined by a firm's productivity and demand uncertainty. Hence, firms with higher productivity or lower market uncertainty are offered lower interest rates and thus show better export performance. As an application, we also show that a risk-sharing mechanism, that pools default risk for a certain group of firms, lowers the default risk. This mechanism allows banks to charge lower interest rates to the member firms and therefore ultimately improves their export performance in both extensive and intensive margins. We find a real-world example of such a mechanism from business groups in Korea. Using Korean firm-level data, we show that the more diversified the business group, the greater the likelihood that its member firms export and the bigger their export revenues. We also show that our results are robust to alternative explanations for Korean business groups’ export competitiveness.     

公司控制权、资本流动性与并购绩效*——基于交互视角的中国上市公司股权收购的研究

现有文献分别考察了公司内部治理机制和外部资本市场对并购绩效的影响,甚少考虑外部资本市场与内部治理特征内生性的影响,这会使研究结论产生偏差。本文将上述两者结合起来,在交互的视角下,首先运用夏普里（Shapley）值分解法分析了控制权与流动性各自对并购绩效的贡献,进一步分析了控制权与流动性之间的相互影响,并设计了分位数分组回归模型,研究在流动性调整下控制权的并购绩效效应。本文研究表明,流动性对公司控制权的并购绩效产生了比较明显的调整,货币市场流动性高时控制权并购绩效低;股票市场流动性高时控制权并购绩效显著;而个股流动性对控制权的并购绩效调整不明显。     

Different compositions of aggregate sentiment and their impact on macroeconomic stability

In recent times a number of agent-based models have been put forward that specify an aggregate sentiment as the difference between optimists and pessimists and let the agents endogenously switch between the two attitudes. The present paper extends this stylized framework by adding a third category, which may be viewed as neutrality. On this basis it then formulates a dynamic three-dimensional Goodwinian model with a special focus on multiple long-run equilibrium positions, which may emerge from just one and very natural nonlinearity in the switching process. The equilibria exhibit the same difference between optimists and pessimists and thus give rise to the same aggregate rate of growth, so that they cannot be distinguished at the macroeconomic level. The feature in which they nevertheless differ is the share of neutral agents. Remarkably, this affects stability. In particular, the trajectories may converge to one of two locally stable equilibrium points, or alternatively to a uniquely determined limit cycle. Coexistence of these attractors is absent in a two-state sentiment dynamics. Generally, the results may also be of interest to empirical business cycle research.     

The equity price channel in a New-Keynesian DSGE model with financial frictions and banking

This paper studies the role of the equity price channel in business cycle fluctuations, and highlights the equity price channel as a different aspect to general equilibrium models with financial frictions and, as a result, emphasizes the systemic influence of financial markets on the real economy. We develop a canonical dynamic general equilibrium model with a tractable role for the equity market in banking, entrepreneur and household economic activities. The model is estimated with Bayesian techniques using U.S. data over the sample period 1982Q01–2015Q01. We show that a dynamic general equilibrium model with an equity price channel well mimics the U.S. business cycle. The model reproduces the strong procyclicality of the equity price. The equity price channel significantly exacerbates business cycle fluctuations through both financial accelerator and bank capital channels. Our results support the increasing emphasis on common equity capital in Basel III regulations. This is beneficial in terms of financial stability, but amplifies and propagates shocks to the real economy.     

基于复合实物期权的公司流动性定价研究

公司流动性是指公司或企业持有的流动性资产,它除了账面价值外,还含有某种潜在价值。对公司流动性价值进行科学的评估,对于投资者、公司管理者等各方都非常重要。采用实物期权理论对公司流动性进行定价。是目前公司金融理论的前沿课题。这方面的研究不但可以打开对公司流动性认知的新视野,还可以促使我们通过了解公司持有的流动性所蕴含的价值,进而对整个公司价值进行真正正确的评估。本文首次揭示了公司流动性的复合实物期权性质,并用复合实物期权二叉树模型进行了公司流动性定价的尝试,为公司财务管理决策提供了一种量化的工具。通过使用复合实物期权模型,我们得到了公司流动性复合期权的价值,这个价值不但大于流动性持有的机会成本和其最初时刻的静态价值,同样也比常用的NPV法算出的项目价值大。多出来的价值就是考虑了流动性复合期权的结果。     

中国公司债券的信用利差与流动性风险

利用主成分分析法构造公司债券流动性风险测度指标,引入M-Copula函数和Markov机制转换模型实证分析中国公司债券的流动性风险与信用利差的关系。结果表明,M-Copula函数与Markov机制转换模型的实证结果一致。具体如下:公司债券的流动性风险对信用利差的影响是一个动态的非线性过程;两者之间存在显著的非对称尾部相关性,其中上尾相关性较高,即熊市时期流动性风险和信用利差同时增大的概率高于牛市时期,且熊市时期流动性风险对信用利差的影响程度显著高于其他时期。     

How product innovation in the North may immiserize the South : A new look at the Ricardian model with a continuum of goods

The paper proposes a theoretical model investigating the welfare consequences of technological shocks in a Ricardian framework (a la Dornbush, Fisher and Samuelson, 1977). Contrary to the existing literature, the model incorporates a nonhomothetic demand function whose price and income elasticities are endogenously determined by technology. Nonhomothetic preferences are modeled as the result of the hierarchical consumption of luxury and necessity goods. The nature of technical progress determines the consumption pattern and notably the magnitude of the substitution effect between necessities and luxuries. The model is applied to the case of trade between two economies with different development levels. It is shown in particular that the developing country can suffer a fall in utility as a result of technical progress in the developed country biased towards luxury goods. This configuration depends on the size of the development gap and reflects the fact that Southern goods are less attractive, the higher the range of goods consumed. This result suggests that there is an optimal level of development gap to avoid LDCs being harmed by technical progress in the North.     

Firm dynamics and markup variations: Implications for sunspot equilibria and endogenous economic fluctuations

This paper analyzes how the interaction between firms’ entry-and-exit decisions and variations in competition gives rise to self-fulfilling, expectation-driven fluctuations in aggregate economic activity and in measured total factor productivity (TFP). The analysis is based on a dynamic general equilibrium model in which net business formation is endogenously procyclical and leads to endogenous countercyclical variations in markups. This interaction leads to indeterminacy in which economic fluctuations occur as a result of self-fulfilling shifts in the beliefs of rational forward looking agents. When calibrated with empirically plausible parameter values and driven solely by self-fulfilling shocks to expectations, the model can quantitatively account for the main empirical regularities characterizing postwar U.S. business cycles and for 65% of the fluctuations in measured TFP.     

Strange attractors in a multisector business cycle model

Three coupled oscillating sectors in a multisector Kaldor-type business cycle model can give rise to the occurrence of chaotic motion. If the sectors are linked by investment demand interdependencies, this coupling can be interpreted as a perturbation of a motion on a three-dimensional torus. A theorem by Newhouse, Ruelle and Takens implies that such a perturbation may possess a strange attractor with the consequence that the flow of the perturbed system may become irregular or chaotic. A numerical investigation reveals that parameter values can be found which indeed lead to chaotic trajectories in this cycle model.