Macroeconomics Department Publications

Drivers of Structural Change in Cross-Border Banking since the Global Financial Crisis

The paper analyzes the effects of changes to regulatory policy and to monetary policy on cross-border bank lending since the global financial crisis. Cross-border bank lending has decreased, and the home bias in the credit portfolio of banks has risen sharply, especially among banks in the euro area. Our results suggest that expansionary monetary policy in the source countries – as measured by the ...

How Do Insured Deposits Affect Bank Risk? Evidence from the 2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act

This paper tests whether an increase in insured deposits causes banks to become more risky. We use variation introduced by the U.S. Emergency Economic Stabilization Act in October 2008, which increased the deposit insurance coverage from $100,000 to $250,000 per depositor and bank. For some banks, the amount of insured deposits increased significantly; for others, it was a minor change. Our analysis ...

Credit Rating Agency Downgrades and the Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crises

Sovereign Risk, Interbank Freezes, and Aggregate Fluctuations

This paper studies the bank-sovereign link in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium set-up with strategic default on public debt. Heterogeneous banks give rise to an interbank market where government bonds are used as collateral. A default penalty arises from a breakdown of interbank intermediation that induces a credit crunch. Government borrowing under limited commitment is costly ex ante as bank ...

Business Cycles, Unemployment and Entrepreneurial Entry: Evidence from Germany

We investigate whether people are more willing to become self-employed during boom periods or during recessions and to what extent business cycles or unemployment levels influence entries into entrepreneurship. Our analysis for Germany reveals that there is a positive relationship between unemployment rates and start-up activities. Moreover, new business formation is higher during recessions than in ...

Understanding Chinese Consumption: The Impact of Hukou

The Chinese growth miracle was based on exports and investment in recent years. While strong output growth has been maintained even during the financial crisis, the imbalances within the country increased. To return to a more sustainable path of development, policies are directed to improve the role of private consumption. However, the institutional framework is an impediment to the transformation, ...

Growing out of the Crisis: Hidden Assets to Greece's Transition to an Innovation Economy

Greece's currently planned institutional reforms will help to get the country going with limited economic growth. With an economy based primarily on tourism, trade, and agriculture, Greece lacks an established competitive industry and an innovation-friendly environment, resulting in a low export ratio given the small size of the country and its long-time EU-membership. Instead, Greece exports only ...

Big Banks and Macroeconomic Outcomes: Theory and Cross-Country Evidence of Granularity

Does the mere presence of big banks affect macroeconomic outcomes? In this paper, we develop a theory of granularity (Gabaix, 2011) for the banking sector, introducing Bertrand competition and heterogeneous banks charging variable markups. Using this framework, we show conditions under which idiosyncratic shocks to bank lending can generate aggregate fluctuations in the credit supply when the banking ...

On the Relevance of Exports for Regional Output Growth in China

Despite high economic growth during the last decades, China is still vulnerable to shocks arising from industrial states. The advanced economies determine Chinese export performance, with subsequent effects on output growth. Using a production function approach, this paper examines to which extent regional GDP growth in China is export driven. In a panel of 28 Chinese provinces, series are splitted ...

The Transmission of Oil and Food Prices to Consumer Prices: Evidence for the MENA Countries

This paper investigates the effects of global oil and food price shocks to consumer prices in Middle East-North African (MENA) countries using threshold cointegration methods. Oil and food price shocks increase domestic prices in the long run, whereby the impact of food prices dominates. While global prices are weakly exogenous, consumer prices respond to deviations from the equilibrium relationship. ...