This paper studies the question of the economic scale of financial institutions. We show that banks actively smooth book equity by adjusting payouts to achieve a desired trajectory of book equity. The countercyclical nature of net payouts of financial institutions leads to procyclical book...

We document the cyclical properties of the balance sheets of different types of intermediaries. While the leverage of the bank sector is highly procyclical, the leverage of the nonbank financial sector is acyclical. We propose a theory of a two-agent financial intermediary sector within a...

During the last 25 years, the stock market in the US has been strongly pro-cyclical in the presence of a counter-cyclical monetary policy. In this paper, we use an endogenous business cycle model to explore the factors contributing to a pro-cyclical stock market. A dynamic expectation structure...

The aim of this paper is to compare statistical properties of stock price indices in periods of booms with those in periods of stagnations. We use the daily data of the four stock price indices in the major stock markets in the world: (i) the Nikkei 225 index (Nikkei 225) from January 4, 1975 to...

We develop a theory of financial intermediary leverage cycles in the context of a dynamic model of the macroeconomy. The interaction between a production sector, a financial intermediation sector, and a household sector gives rise to amplification of fundamental shocks that affect real economic...

This paper discusses the link between financial development and macroeconomic volatility by exploring some of the ways through which financial development may affect business cycle fluctuations. To be specific, we examine whether stock market development exerts an unambiguous effect on...

A Ricardian-type set-up is used to explore the linkage between financial development and the business cycle. Though financial advancement may be good for growth due to making possible a higher degree of division of labor, it may, for the same reason, be bad for the business cycle. Building on...

We model aggregate loss rates on credit portfolios dynamically using a default intensity approach. The default intensity we employ is allowed to depend on both observable macroeconomic variables and unobserved frailties. We use the model to extract measures of the credit cycle from US bank...

We develop a theory of financial intermediary leverage cycles in the context of a dynamic model of the macroeconomy. The interaction between a production sector, a financial intermediation sector, and a household sector gives rise to amplification of fundamental shocks that affect real economic...