We extend the Bewley-Aiyagari-Huggett model by incorporating an incomplete stock market and a persistent income process. In this quantitative general equilibrium framework, non-fundamental asset values are both large and desirable for realistic parameter values. However, if expectations shift...

We investigate the causes of the Finnish Great Depression, 1990-1993. We find that the collapse of the overheated financial and banking sectors starting in 1989 was the trigger of the economic crisis. Foreign shocks, which include the collapse of trade with USSR in 1991, can account for at most...

We investigate the causes of the Finnish Great Depression, 1990-1993. We find that the collapse of the overheated financial and banking sectors starting in 1989 was the trigger of the economic crisis. Foreign shocks, which include the collapse of trade with USSR in 1991, can account for at most...

On their intensive margins, firms in the British engineering industry adjusted to the severe falls in demand during the 1930s Depression by cutting hours of work. This provided an important means of reducing labour input and marginal labour costs, through movements from overtime to short-time...

We employ a unique data set of public commercial real estate (CRE) bonds issued during the Great Depression era (1920-32) to determine their frequency of default and total loss given default. Default rates on these bonds far exceeded those originated in subsequent periods, driven in part by the...

Based on firm‐level payroll data from around 2000 member firms of the BritishEngineering Employers’ Federation we examine the behavior of real hourly earnings over the1927‐1937 cycle that contained the Great Depression. The pay statistics are based on adultmale blue‐collar workers within...

This paper examines the mechanism through which banking sector distress affects the availability of credit. We use the experience of the United States during the Great Depression, a period of intense bank distress, to conduct our analysis. We utilize previously neglected data from a 1934 survey...

Although the recent Great Recession was severe, its financial impact never paralleled that of the Great Depression. The November Newsletter compares these two economic downturns and shows how lessons learned in the Great Depression helped current Federal Reserve policymakers stabilize the...