Miguel Casares

The New Keynesian Model and the Euro Area Business Cycle

This paper describes a New Keynesian model incorporating transactions-facilitating money and a time-to-build constraint into endogenous capital accumulation. The calibrated New Keynesian model performs almost as well as the estimated vector autoregressive model in replicating Euro area cyclical correlations between key variables such as output and inflation, although it fares less well in predicting the procyclical dynamics of nominal interest rates. The presence of a time-to-build requirement in the model helps to improve its fit to Euro area data, whereas the role of transactions-facilitating money is much less important. Impulse-response functions and a decomposition of variance complete the analysis. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the Department of Economics, University of Oxford 2007.

Short-Run and Long-Run Effects of Banking in a New Keynesian Model

This paper introduces both endogenous capital accumulation and deposit-in-advance requirements for investment in the banking model of Goodfriend and McCallum (2007). Impulse response functions from technology and monetary shocks show some attenuation effect due to the procyclical behavior of the marginal finance cost. In addition, an adverse financial shock produces sizeable declines in output, inflation and interest rates. In the long-run analysis, we finnd the following effects of banking intermediation: (i) the stock of capital increases to take advantage of its collateral services, and (ii) consumption and labor fall in response to the finance cost attached to purchases of goods. Using the baseline calibrated model, we show how a 10 percent increase in banking efficiency would result in a permanent welfare gain equivalent to 0.3 percent of output.

Firm Entry under Financial Frictions

How does a general-equilibrium model behave when incorporating competitive firm entry that requires external finance? After conducting a steady-state analysis, we reach three main results. First, the financial constraint has contractionary effects on both equity investment and the labor supply as they are inversely related to the marginal finance cost. Second, the dynamics of firm creation and destruction amplify the impact of changes in either productivity or banking efficiency due to procyclical firm entry. Third, a higher elasticity of substitution (that implies a lower mark-up) cuts the number of firms and makes aggregate output fall.

THE SWINGS OF U.S. INFLATION AND THE GIBSON PARADOX: SWINGS OF U.S. INFLATION

In recent business cycles, U.S. inflation has experienced a reduction of volatility and a severe weakening in the correlation to the nominal interest rate (Gibson paradox). We examine these facts in an estimated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with money. Our findings point at a flatter New Keynesian Phillips Curve (higher price stickiness) and a lower persistence of markup shocks as the main explanatory factors. In addition, a higher interest‐rate elasticity of money demand, an increasing role of demand‐side shocks, and a less systematic behavior of Feds monetary policy also account for the recent patterns of U.S. inflation dynamics. (JEL E32, E47)

Loan production and monetary policy

We examine optimal monetary policy in a New Keynesian model with unemployment and financial frictions where banks produce loans using equity as collateral. Firms and households demand loans to finance externally a fraction of their flows of expenditures. Our findings show amplifying business-cycle effects of a more rigid loan production technology. In the monetary policy analysis, the optimal rule clearly outperforms Taylor (1993) rule. The optimized interest-rate response to the external finance premium turns significantly negative when either banking rigidities are high or when financial shocks are the only source of business cycle fluctuations.

Business cycle and monetary policy analysis with market rigidities and financial frictions

We describe a dynamic macroeconomic model that incorporates firm-level borrowing constraints, competitive CES loan production, and rigidities on both setting prices and wages. The external finance premium (interest-rate spread) is countercyclical with technology and financial shocks, and procyclical with consumption spending shocks. The real effects of financial shocks are significantly amplified when either considering greater rigidities for price/wage setting or a low elasticity of substitution in loan production (banking real rigidities). In the monetary policy analysis, a stabilizing Taylor (1983)-style rule performs slightly better when incorporating a positive and small response coefficient to the external finance premium.