Recent financial turmoil and existing empirical evidence suggest that adverse shocks to the financial intermediary (FI) sector cause substantial economic downturns. The quantitative significance of these shocks to the U.S. business cycle, however, has not received much attention up to now. To...

In this paper, we decompose oil price changes into their component parts following Kilian (2009) and estimate the dynamic effects of each component on industry-level production and prices in the U.S. and Japan using identified VAR models. The way oil price changes affect each industry depends on...

Based on the financial accelerator model of Bernanke et al. (1999), we develop a dynamic general equilibrium model for a chain of credit contracts in which financial intermediaries (hereafter FIs) as well as entrepreneurs are subject to credit constraints. Financial intermediation takes place...

Recent empirical studies reveal that the oil price-output relationship is weakening in the US. Oil price-output correlation is less negative, and output reduction in response to oil price rise is more moderate after mid 1980s. In contrast to the conventional view that there have been changes in...

We evaluate the implications of spread-adjusted Taylor rules and capital injection policies in response to adverse shocks to the economy, using a variant of the financial accelerator model. Our model comprises the two credit-constrained sectors that raise external finance under the credit market...

In the wake of the gGreat Recessionh of 2007-09, recent studies have emphasized the importance of the ginternational finance multiplier (IFM)h mechanism for inter- national business cycles, using calibrated two-country models. This paper develops and estimates a two- country model with the IFM...

In this paper, we investigate the dynamics of foreign direct investment (FDI) and examine the effects of FDI on the macroeconomic dynamics following a decline in labor endowment. In so doing, we introduce capital accumulation into Helpman, Melitz and Yeaple (2004)'s model and extend their model...

In this paper, we first set up a model that incorporates firm dynamics into the Global Economy Model (henceforth, GEM) developed by the IMF Research Department. Then, we show how the economic variables respond to the shocks that shift the production frontier outwards, namely productivity gains...

Focusing on policy-making under uncertainty, we analyze the Bank of Japanfs monetary policy in the early 1990s when the bubble economy collapsed. Conducting stochastic simulations with a large-scale macroeconomic model of the Japanese economy, we find that the BOJfs monetary policy at that time...

Using Japanese household survey data from 2007 to 2010, we examine how household age, income, financial assets, and education affect the tendency to participate in the stock market. Our analysis suggests that the probability of stock market participation correlates weakly with age, holding...