We assess the macroeconomic effects of a sovereign restructuring in a small economy belonging to a monetary union by simulating a dynamic general equilibrium model. We compare the macroeconomic outcome of restructuring with scenarios where the debt reduction is achieved via fiscal adjustment. In line with the empirical evidence, we assume that the sovereign debt is held by domestic agents and by agents in the rest of the monetary union; after the restructuring the sovereign borrowing rate increases and the increase is fully transmitted to the domestic households' borrowing rate; and the government cannot discriminate between domestic and foreign agents when restructuring. We also assume that the small economy does not exit from the monetary union after the restructuring and that the restructuring does not have systemic effects on the rest of the union. Our results suggest that the restructuring can imply persistent and large reduction of output, especially if the share of public debt held domestically is large, the private foreign debt is high, and the spread paid by the government and the households does increases.

The initial government debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio and the government's commitment play a pivotal role in determining the welfare-optimal speed of fiscal consolidation in the management of a debt crisis. Under commitment, for low or moderate initial government debt-to-GDP ratios, the optimal consolidation is very slow. A faster pace is optimal when the economy starts from a high level of public debt implying high sovereign risk premia, unless these are suppressed via a bailout by official creditors. Under discretion, the cost of not being able to commit is reflected into a quick consolidation of government debt. Simple monetary–fiscal rules with passive fiscal policy, designed for an environment with “normal shocks,” perform reasonably well in mimicking the Ramsey-optimal response to one-off government debt shocks. When the government can issue also long-term bonds—under commitment—the optimal debt consolidation pace is slower than in the case of short-term bonds only, and entails an increase in the ratio between long- and short-term bonds.

In contrast to the standard approach in energy economics, this paper assumes that physical capital accumulation is relatively more energy-intensive than consumption. By means of Gaussian hypergeometric functions, we provide a closed-form representation of the optimal solution paths of our variables in levels, whatever the initial conditions (i.e., global dynamics). We find that, in general, the optimal trajectories are nonmonotonic. P.S. Dasgupta and G.M. Heal [Review of Economic Studies (special number), 3–28 (1974)] pointed out this result (local dynamics) for the optimal consumption in a model with identical technology for both physical capital accumulation and consumption. However, our paper introduces five novelties with respect to their study, namely, global dynamics, the importance of the proportion of nonrenewable energy resources to endowment of physical capital [S(0)/K(0)], the role of technical progress, U-shaped behavior of consumption, and nonmonotonicity of resource extraction.

This paper characterizes the global dynamics of the saving rate in the neoclassical growth model with CES production. The study is based on qualitative phase-diagram analysis. The analytical conditions characterizing the cases that may arise theoretically depending on the parameters' configuration are obtained. It is well known that the saving rate behaves monotonically if technology is Cobb-Douglas. However, when the elasticity of substitution is nonunitary, the saving rate path may exhibit nonmonotonic behavior.

This study provides an infinite-horizon model of rational bubbles in a production economy. A bubble can arise when the pursuit of status is modeled explicitly, capturing the notion of “the spirit of capitalism.” Using a parameterized model, I demonstrate the specific conditions for the existence of bubbles and their implications. Bubbles crowd out investment, stimulate consumption, and slow economic growth. I also discuss a stochastic bubble that bursts with an exogenous probability. I show that there could be multiple stochastic bubbly equilibria. Moreover, I suggest that taxing wealth properly can eliminate bubbles and achieve the social optimum.

This paper examines an infinite-horizon model of nonlinear income taxation in which the probability that the government can commit is high, but not certain. In this “loose commitment” environment, we find that even a little uncertainty over whether the government can commit yields substantial effects on the optimal dynamic nonlinear income tax system. This result holds even though separating taxation remains optimal, as in the case of full commitment. Under an empirically plausible parameterization, our numerical simulations show that high-skilled individuals must be subsidized in the short run, despite the government's redistributive objective, unless the probability of commitment is higher than 98%. Loose commitment also reverses the short-run welfare effects of changes in most of the model's parameters, and yields some counterintuitive outcomes. For example, all individuals are worse off, rather than better off, in the short run when the proportion of high-skilled individuals in the economy increases.

Can officially reported output figures be externally validated? This paper presents a dynamic panel framework for assessing statistics using verifiable signals of economic activity. In this context, satellite readings of nitrogen dioxide, a byproduct of combustion, are forwarded. The problem of validating China's reported gross domestic product at the sub-national level during two recent downturns is considered. During the Great Recession period, reported figures are validated for some regions, but not others, including specifically those known to be inaccurate.

To explain the high and persistent unemployment rate in the United States during and after the Great Recession, this effort develops and estimates a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with search and matching frictions and shocks to unemployment benefits and matching efficiency. It finds that unemployment benefits play an important role in the cyclical movement of unemployment through their effects on labor demand, a channel overlooked in previous studies. From the second half of 2008 to 2011, extended unemployment benefits may have increased the overall unemployment rate by one percentage point. In contrast, matching efficiency changes had less effect on the cyclical movement of unemployment for the same period, but significantly slowed down the recovery after 2012.

This paper investigates how the inclusion of capital in the workhorse new open economy macro model affects its ability to generate volatile and persistent real exchange rates. We show that capital accumulation facilitates intertemporal consumption smoothing and significantly reduces the volatility of the real exchange rate. Nonetheless, monetary and investment-specific technology (IST) shocks still induce more real exchange rate volatility and less consumption comovement than productivity shocks (with or without capital). We find that endogenous persistence is particularly sensitive to the inertia of the monetary policy rule even with persistent exogenous shocks. However, irrespective of whether capital is present, productivity and IST shocks trigger highly persistent real exchange rates, whereas monetary shocks do not. Moreover, we point out that IST shocks tend to generate countercyclical real exchange rates—unlike productivity or monetary shocks—but have the counterfactual effect of also producing excessive investment volatility and countercyclical consumption.

We use robust control to study how a central bank in an economy with imperfect interest rate pass-through conducts monetary policy if it fears that its model could be misspecified. We find that, first, whether robust optimal monetary policy under commitment responds more cautiously or more aggressively depends crucially on the source of shock. Imperfect pass-through amplifies the robust policy. Second, if the central bank is concerned about uncertainty, it dampens volatility in the inflation rate preemptively but accepts higher volatility in the output gap and loan rate. However, for highly sticky loan rates, insurance against model misspecification becomes particularly pricy. Third, if the central bank fears uncertainty only in the IS equation or the loan rate equation, the robust policy shifts its concern for stabilization away from inflation.

This paper proposes a New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of the Chinese economy incorporating the demand of oil to study the effects of oil price shocks on the business cycle. The model answers several questions, including how monetary policy should respond to the disturbances from such shocks, and whether monetary authorities should use core inflation or headline inflation including oil price inflation as the monetary policy rule. The contributions could be summarized as follows: First, the model reveals that the oil transmission mechanism is determined by the nominal inertia, income effect, and the portfolio allocation effect. Second, both noncore inflation monetary policy and core inflation monetary policy that are simultaneously pegged to oil prices fluctuations are inferior to the monetary policy purely pegged to core inflation. Our findings suggest that the monetary policy should focus on core inflation instead of headline inflation.

We analyze the simplest possible model of endogenous growth to account for the role of financial development. In our setting, financial development affects productivity and determines the amount of resources subtracted to capital investment. We show that under very general assumptions, the relation between economic growth and financial depth is nonmonotonic, and eventually bell-shaped. We empirically assess our results in a framework that allows to distinguish between long-run and short-run effects. We establish a cointegrating relation and derive the long-run elasticities of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) with respect to employment, the physical capital stock, and financial depth–relying on linear as well as nonlinear models for the finance-growth nexus. We employ the results of the first step estimation to specify an error–correction model and find that there is strong evidence for a nonlinear relationship between financial depth and per capita GDP, consistently with what was predicted by our theoretical model.

We study the dynamics of risk premia in a model with external habit formation and highlight the significance of “recession predictability”. Although under the specification of Campbell and Cochrane, [Journal of Political Economy 107, 205–251 (1999)] the equity risk premium is countercyclical because increases in risk aversion are reinforced by rising recession risks, this need not be the case more generally. We show analytically that in endowment economies procyclical recession expectations can outweigh countercyclical changes in risk aversion, generating counterfactual risk-premium behavior. However, allowing shocks or habits to be sufficiently persistent, or explicitly accounting for the impact of habits on consumption, suffices to generate countercyclical recession risks and risk premia.

This paper explores the equilibrium properties of boundedly rational heterogeneous agents under adaptive learning. In a modified cobweb model with a Stackelberg framework, there is an asymmetric information diffusion process from leading to following firms. It turns out that the conditions for at least one learnable equilibrium are similar to those under homogeneous expectations. However, the introduction of information diffusion leads to the possibility of multiple equilibria and can expand the parameter space of potential learnable equilibria. In addition, the inability to correctly interpret expectations will cause a “boomerang effect” on the forecasts and forecast efficiency of the leading firms. The leading firms' mean square forecast error can be larger than that of following firms if the proportion of following firms is sufficiently large.

Benhabib et al. [(2001) Journal of Economic Theory 96, 40–69] argue that there exists a deflation steady state when the zero lower bound on the nominal interest rate is considered in a Taylor-type monetary policy rule. This paper estimates a medium-scale DSGE model with a deflation steady state for the Japanese economy during the period from 1999 to 2013, when the Bank of Japan conducted a zero interest rate policy and the inflation rate was almost always negative. Although the model exhibits equilibrium indeterminacy around the deflation steady state, a set of specific equilibria is selected by Bayesian methods. According to the estimated model, positive shocks to households’ preferences and wage markup, and a negative shock to monetary policy do not necessarily have an inflationary effect, in contrast to a standard model with a targeted-inflation steady state. An economy in the deflation equilibrium could experience unexpected volatility because of sunspot fluctuations, but it turns out that sunspot shocks have a limited effect on Japan’s output fluctuations and rather contribute to stabilizing the economy after the global financial crisis.

Nonlinear co-integration is studied for score-driven models, using a new multivariate dynamic conditional score/generalized autoregressive score model. The model is named t-QVARMA (quasi-vector autoregressive moving average model), which is a location model for the multivariate t-distribution. In t-QVARMA, I(0) and co-integrated I(1) components of the dependent variables are included. For t-QVARMA, the conditions of the maximum likelihood estimator and impulse response functions (IRFs) are presented. A limiting special case of t-QVARMA, named Gaussian-QVARMA, is a Gaussian-VARMA specification with I(0) and I(1) components. As an empirical application, the US real gross domestic product growth, US inflation rate, and effective federal funds rate are studied for the period of 1954 Q3 to 2020 Q2. Statistical performance and predictive accuracy of t-QVARMA are superior to those of Gaussian-VAR. Estimates of the short-run IRF, long-run IRF, and total IRF impacts for the US data are reported.

This paper proposes a framework of endogenous energy production with convex costs to investigate the general equilibrium effects of energy price shocks on the business cycle. This framework explicitly models the consumption of durables and nondurables and implements a high complementarity between energy and the usage of durables and capital. The model predicts energy price elasticities of various consumption variables that fall within reasonable agreement with empirical estimates. Convex costs in energy production produce energy price and energy supply dynamics that tallies well with empirical behavior. Our analysis confirms in a theoretical setting recent observations that not all energy price shocks are the same. They can be distinct in terms of energy price dynamics and impact on the business cycle, as well as energy price elasticities of various macro variables that can be useful indicators for their underlying causes.

“Good policy” and “good luck” have been identified as two of the possible drivers of the “Great Moderation,” but their relative importance is still widely debated. This paper investigates the role played by equilibrium selection under indeterminacy in the assessment of their relative merits. We contrast the outcomes of counterfactual simulations conditional on the “continuity” selection strategy–largely exploited by the literature–with those obtained with a novel “sign restriction” based strategy. Our results suggest that conclusions achieved under “continuity” are not necessarily robust to the selection of different–still economically sensible–equilibria. According to our simulations, the switch to a hawkish systematic monetary policy may very well induce an increase in output volatility. Hence, our sign restriction–selection strategy “resurrects” the inflation–output policy tradeoff.

We investigate the presence of nonlinear effects of government spending shocks during good and bad times in a panel of 17 emerging markets through the lens of a Bayesian panel threshold VAR model. We find that the responses of gross domestic product, consumption, investment, trade balance, real exchange rate, and real interest rates vary depending on the state of the economy. Particularly, in slump periods, both consumption and investment may respond negatively to a government purchase stimulus, unlike in normal times. Our estimated government spending multipliers are less than one in the two regimes and can be zero in bad times.

I revisit the popular concern over a nonlinearity or threshold in the relationship between public debt and growth employing long time series data from up to 27 countries. My empirical approach recognizes that standard time series arguments for long-run equilibrium relations between integrated variables (cointegration) break down in nonlinear specifications such as those predominantly applied in the existing debt–growth literature. Adopting the novel cosummability approach, my analysis overcomes these difficulties to find no evidence for a systematic long-run relationship between debt and growth in the bivariate and economic theory-based multivariate specifications popular in this literature.