In this paper, we investigate the macroeconomic response to exogenous shocks, namely natural disasters and stochastic productivity shocks. To do so, we make use of an endogenous business cycle model in which cyclical behavior arises from the investment-profit instability; the amplitude of this...

Theory suggests that endogenous borrowing constraints amplify the impact of external shocks on the economy. How big is the amplification? In this paper, we quantitatively investigate this question in the context of a dynamic, general equilibrium model with borrowing constraints under two...

Business cycle fluctuations in the U.S. employment-to-population ratio are asymmetric: deviations below trend (troughs) are larger than deviations above trend (peaks). This asymmetry has a "scarring effect," which reduces the average level of the employment-to-population ratio around which the...

Basu and Bundick (2017) show a second moment intertemporal preference shock creates meaningful declines in output in a sticky price model with Epstein and Zin (1991) preferences. The result, however, rests on the way they model the shock. If a preference shock is included in Epstein-Zin...

This paper aims to shed light on the importance of health considerations for business cycle fluctuations and the effect of health status on labour productivity and availability of labour input for productive use. To this end, Grossman's (2000) partial‐equilibrium framework with endogenous...

Can increased uncertainty about the future cause a contraction in output and its components? An identified uncertainty shock in the data causes significant declines in output, consumption, investment, and hours worked. Standard general-equilibrium models with flexible prices cannot reproduce...

In this paper we present an overview of theoretical and empirical contributions exploring the inter-linkages between financial factors and real economic activity. We first revisit the main theoretical approaches that allow financial frictions to be embedded into general equilibrium models, and...

We build a variation of the neoclassical growth model in which financial shocks to households or wealth shocks (in the sense of wealth destruction) generate recessions. Two standard ingredients that are necessary are (1) the existence of adjustment costs that make the expansion of the tradable...

We document that even though the normal distribution provides a good approximation to GDP fluctuations, it severely underpredicts "macroeconomic tail risks," that is, the frequency of large economic downturns. Using a multi-sector general equilibrium model, we show that the interplay of...