Francisco J. Buera

Financial Frictions and the Persistence of History: A Quantitative Exploration

We quantitatively analyze the role of financial frictions and resource misallocation in explaining development dynamics. Our model economy with financial frictions converges to the new steady state slowly after a reform triggers efficient reallocation of resources; the transition speed is half that of the conventional neoclassical model. Furthermore, in the model economy, investment rates and total factor productivity are initially low and increase over time. We present data from the so-called miracle economies on the evolution of macro aggregates, factor reallocation, and establishment size distribution that support the aggregate and micro-level implications of our theory.

CAN TRADITIONAL THEORIES OF STRUCTURAL CHANGE FIT THE DATA

Two traditional explanations for structural changes are sector-biased technological progress and non-homothetic preferences. This paper integrates both into an otherwise standard growth model and quantitatively evaluates them vis-a-vis time series. The exercise identifies a set of puzzles for standard theories: (i) the model cannot account for the steep decline in manufacturing and rise in services in the later data; (ii) the standard model requires implausibly low elasticity of substitution across goods to match the consumption and output data; and (iii) the behavior of consumption and output shares differs significantly from that of employment shares. We argue that models that incorporate home production, sector-specific factor distortions, and differences across sectors in the accumulation of human capital are promising avenues to amend the standard models. (JEL: O11, O14, O41) (c) 2009 by the European Economic Association.

Scale and the Origins of Structural Change

Structural change involves a broad set of trends: (i) sectoral reallocations, (ii) rich movements of productive activities between home and market, and (iii) an increase in the scale of productive units. After extending these facts, we develop a model to explain them within a unified framework. The crucial distinction between manufacturing, services, and home production is the scale of the productive unit. Scale technologies give rise to industrialization and the marketization of previously home produced activities. The rise of mass consumption leads to an expansion of manufacturing, but a reversal of the marketization process for service industries. Finally, the later growth in the scale of services leads to a decline in industry and a rise in services.

The Macroeconomics of Microfinance

This paper provides a quantitative evaluation of the aggregate and distributional impacts of economy-wide microfinance or other credit programs targeted toward small-scale entrepreneurs. In our analysis, we find that the redistributive impacts of microfinance are stronger in general-equilibrium, but the aggregate impacts are smaller. Making the typical microfinance program more widely available has a negligible impact on per-capita income, since an increase in aggregate total factor productivity(TFP) is offset by lower capital accumulation that stems from redistributing income from individuals with high saving rates to those with low saving rates. However, the welfare impact is uniformly positive except for those few that are extremely talented and/or wealthy.

Partial differential equation models in macroeconomics

The purpose of this article is to get mathematicians interested in studying a number of partial differential equations (PDEs) that naturally arise in macroeconomics. These PDEs come from models designed to study some of the most important questions in economics. At the same time, they are highly interesting for mathematicians because their structure is often quite difficult. We present a number of examples of such PDEs, discuss what is known about their properties, and list some open questions for future research.

Liquidity Traps and Monetary Policy: Managing a Credit Crunch

We study a model with heterogeneous producers that face collateral and cash in advance constraints. These two frictions give rise to a non-trivial financial market in a monetary economy. A tightening of the collateral constraint results in a credit-crunch generated recession. The model can suitable be used to study the effects on the main macroeconomic variables - and on welfare of each individual - of alternative monetary - and fiscal - policies following the credit crunch. The model reproduces several features of the recent financial crisis, like the persistent negative real interest rates, the prolonged period at the zero bound for the nominal interest rate, the collapse in investment and low inflation, in spite of the very large increases of liquidity adopted by the government. The policy implications are in sharp contrast with the prevalent view in most Central Banks, based on the New Keynesian explanation of the liquidity trap.

The dynamics of development : innovation and reallocation

This paper proposes a quantitative model of firm dynamics with endogenous innovation to study growth acceleration episodes triggered by reforms. The authors find that reforms removing barriers to firm entry lead to persistent growth in TFP and declining average firm size, as in the experience of successful post-communist transitions. Reforms that reverse resource misallocation result in more protracted paths of TFP and rising average firm size, as in the experience of non-communist growth accelerations. When calibrating the reforms to data from Chiles and China’s growth accelerations, the model can replicate the macro and firm-level features of these episodes.

The Argentine Economy after Two Centuries

We document the behavior of income per capita in Argentina subsequent to independence and the civil wars of the mid-19th century. We first decompose the data to isolate low frequency behavior and show that, with significant departures over some periods of time, income per capita grew, on average, at 1.2% per year. The decomposition shows that the largest departure from this behavior is the period from 1974 to 2010, when there was a large and sustained deviation from the trend, with two subperiodsof rapid convergence. Using a simple version of Solow’s growth model as a conceptual framework, we focus our analysis on that particular period. We calibrate and simulate the model from 1950 onwards and use its predictions to provide a quantitative measure of the extremely poor performance of the Argentine economy since 1974. We also use a simple model of the government budget constraint to account for the macroeconomic history of Argentina during that same period. We argue that the systematic mismanagement of government budgets is the principal reason for Argentina’s long departure from the trend. The two subperiods of rapid convergence coincide with the two subperiods of macro fiscal discipline.