One of the most puzzling facts in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) is that output across advanced and emerging economies recovered at a much slower rate than anticipated by most forecasting agencies. This paper delves into the mechanics behind the observed slow recovery and the associated permanent output losses in the aftermath of the crisis, with a particular focus on the role played by financial frictions and investment dynamics. The paper provides two main contributions. First, we empirically document that lower investment during financial crises is the key factor leading to permanent loss of output and total factor productivity (TFP) in the wake of a crisis. Second, we develop a DSGE model with financial frictions and capital-embodied technological change capable of reproducing the empirical facts. We also evaluate the role of financial policies in stabilizing output and TFP in response to disruptions in financial markets.
We present a rational expectations model of credit-driven crises, providing a new perspective to explain why credit booms can lead to severe financial crises and aftermath slow economic recoveries. In our model economy, banks can operate in two types of business à la Minsky's narratives. They are sequentially aware of the deterioration of fundamentals of the speculative business and decide whether to continue credit extension in that business or liquidate capital and move into the traditional business. However, because individual banks face uncertainty about how many of their peers have been aware, they rationally choose to extend credit in the speculative business for a longer time than is socially optimal, leading to an over-delayed crisis and consequently more banks being caught by the crisis. This in turn renders the financial crisis more severe and the subsequent economic recovery slower. Within a standard textbook macroeconomic growth setting, our model generates rich dynamics of economic booms, slowdowns, crashes, and recoveries.
New York Times Bestseller Washington Post Bestseller Los Angeles Times Bestseller Stress Test is the story of Tim Geithner’s education in financial crises. As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then as President Barack Obama’s secretary of the Treasury, Timothy F. Geithner helped the United States navigate the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, from boom to bust to rescue to recovery. In a candid, riveting, and historically illuminating memoir, he takes readers behind the scenes of the crisis, explaining the hard choices and politically unpalatable decisions he made to repair a broken financial system and prevent the collapse of the Main Street economy. This is the inside story of how a small group of policy makers—in a thick fog of uncertainty, with unimaginably high stakes—helped avoid a second depression but lost the American people doing it. Stress Test is also a valuable guide to how governments can better manage financial crises, because this one won’t be the last. Stress Test reveals a side of Secretary Geithner the public has never seen, starting with his childhood as an American abroad. He recounts his early days as a young Treasury official helping to fight the international financial crises of the 1990s, then describes what he saw, what he did, and what he missed at the New York Fed before the Wall Street boom went bust. He takes readers inside the room as the crisis began, intensified, and burned out of control, discussing the most controversial episodes of his tenures at the New York Fed and the Treasury, including the rescue of Bear Stearns; the harrowing weekend when Lehman Brothers failed; the searing crucible of the AIG rescue as well as the furor over the firm’s lavish bonuses; the battles inside the Obama administration over his widely criticized but ultimately successful plan to end the crisis; and the bracing fight for the most sweeping financial reforms in more than seventy years. Secretary Geithner also describes the aftershocks of the crisis, including the administration’s efforts to address high unemployment, a series of brutal political battles over deficits and debt, and the drama over Europe’s repeated flirtations with the economic abyss. Secretary Geithner is not a politician, but he has things to say about politics—the silliness, the nastiness, the toll it took on his family. But in the end, Stress Test is a hopeful story about public service. In this revealing memoir, Tim Geithner explains how America withstood the ultimate stress test of its political and financial systems.
In the Eighth Edition of this classic text on the financial history of bubbles and crashes, Robert McCauley joins with Robert Aliber in building on Charles Kindleberger's renowned work. McCauley draws on his central banking experience to introduce new chapters on cryptocurrency and the United States as the 21st Century global lender of last resort. He also updates the book's coverage of the recent property bubble in China, as well as providing new perspectives on the US housing bubble of 2003-2006, and the Japanese bubble of the late 1980s. And he gives new attention to the social psychology that leads people to take the risk of investing in Ponzi schemes and asset price bubbles. For the first time in this revised and updated edition, figures highlight key points to ensure that today’s generation of finance and economic researchers, students, practitioners and policy-makers—as well as investors looking to avoid crashes—have access to this panoramic history of financial crisis.
This paper reviews the literature on financial crises focusing on three specific aspects. First, what are the main factors explaining financial crises? Since many theories on the sources of financial crises highlight the importance of sharp fluctuations in asset and credit markets, the paper briefly reviews theoretical and empirical studies on developments in these markets around financial crises. Second, what are the major types of financial crises? The paper focuses on the main theoretical and empirical explanations of four types of financial crises—currency crises, sudden stops, debt crises, and banking crises—and presents a survey of the literature that attempts to identify these episodes. Third, what are the real and financial sector implications of crises? The paper briefly reviews the short- and medium-run implications of crises for the real economy and financial sector. It concludes with a summary of the main lessons from the literature and future research directions.
The world seems awash in financial crises. The Asian crisis of 1998, the near-demise of Long Term Capital Management, and the black hole of Russia are just a few of the most recent. Are they the result of greedy speculators, crony capitalism, or the warp speed of the forces of globalization? Can we send in the repairman and get things fixed through the legal and regulatory systems? Or are other causes at work that may be beyond our control? Money, Greed, and Risk is that rare book which, through adroit analysis of both historical and contemporary events and their leading players, lends new insights into the causes of financial turmoil. Charles Morris: Explores the eternal cycle of financial crises: from brilliant innovation to gross excess and inevitable crash, before investors and institutions catch up. Explains why the American financial system grew from a capital-starved backwater in the nineteenth century to one that plays the leading role in the world today. Examines the technological, economic, demographic, and industrial experiences that caused the financial engine to kick into such high gear in the 1980s and 1990s. Shows how the boom-and-bust cycle in early American history helps illuminate recent events in South Asia and Russia. In the process we become more realistic about what to expect during the nascent stages of capitalism and market development everywhere. Explains that globalization is nothing new. The investment system in the nineteenth century was perhaps even more global than the world today. Looks at contemporary financial geniuses--Michael Milken is a good example--and shows that they didn't invent any financial instruments thatnineteenth-century counterparts like Jay Gould hadn't already thought of. There are a handful of books about finance and the financial markets that are substantive enough to provide intellectual grist for sophisticated investors while also providing intriguing explanations of contemporary events that will be of interest to a general audience. Money, Greed, and Risk is one of them. Finance is the plumbing that makes capitalism run. And, like a good plumbing system, finance is invisible when working well. But just as a broken pipe can be a disaster, so too when the financial system breaks and crises and crashes occur. We look to understand the causes and Charles Morris provides unusual insights that bring our understanding to a new level.
Covering such topics as the history and anatomy of crises, speculative manias, and the lender of last resort, this work is a scholarly account of the way that mismanagement of money and credit has led to financial explosions over the centuries.
This edition of the World Economic Outlook explores how a dramatic escalation of the financial crisis in September 2008 provoked an unprecedented contraction of activity and trade, despite active policy responses. It presents economic projections for 2009 and 2010, and also looks beyond the current crisis, considering factors that will shape the landscape of the global economy over the medium term, as businesses and households seek to repair the damage. The analysis also outlines the difficult policy challenges presented by the overwhelming imperative to take all steps necessary to restore financial stability and revive the global economy, and the longer-run need for national actions to be mutually supporting. The first of two analytical chapters, "What Kind of Economic Recovery?" explores the shape of the eventual recovery. The second, "The Transmission of Financial Stress from Advanced to Emerging and Developing Economies," focuses on the role of external financial linkages and financial stress in transmitting economic shocks.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the 2009 global recession. Most emerging market and developing economies weathered the global recession relatively well, in part by using the sizable fiscal and monetary policy ammunition accumulated during prior years of strong growth. However, their growth prospects have weakened since then, and many now have less policy space. This study provides the first comprehensive stocktaking of the past decade from the perspective of emerging market and developing economies. Many of these economies have now become more vulnerable to economic shocks. The study discusses lessons from the global recession and policy options for these economies to strengthen growth and prepare for the possibility of another global downturn.
