We take an off-the-shelf model with financial frictions and heterogeneity, and study the mapping from a credit crunch, modeled as a shock to collateral constraints, to simple aggregate wedges. We study three variants of this model that only differ in the form of underlying heterogeneity. We find...

Why doesn't capital flow into fast-growing countries? In this paper, we provide a quantitative framework incorporating heterogeneous producers and underdeveloped domestic financial markets to study the joint dynamics of total factor productivity (TFP) and capital flows. When an unexpected...

Why are financial crises associated with a sustained rise in unemployment? We develop a tractable model with frictions in both credit and labor markets to study the aggregate and micro-level implications of a credit crunch--i.e., a tightening of collateral constraints. When we simulate a credit...