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In this paper, we collect the annual data of 145 commercial banks in China from 2010 to 2019 and use a panel data fixed-effect model to study how fintech (financial technology) affects the influence of macroeconomic uncertainty on commercial banks' proactive risk-taking. We find that the development of fintech mitigates the dampening effect of macroeconomic uncertainty on commercial banks' proactive risk-taking. Specifically, fintech plays a mitigating role by motivating commercial banks to issue loans and hold transactional financial assets. With the increase of commercial banks’ proactive risk-taking, the mitigation effect of fintech monotonically diminishes. This mitigating effect is heterogeneous across different types of commercial banks, as it is relatively weak for banks with high capital adequacy ratios and large state-owned banks.

This article examines the impact of data revisions and data sources on the identification of double-dip recessions (DDR) in the United States (U.S.). The authors discuss the GDP revision process and how it can affect the classification of different types of U.S. recessions. They use the Kyer and Maggs methodology to analyze GDP data from different sources and find that data revisions and sources can influence the identification of DDR. The study also highlights the importance of re-examining past classifications of U.S. recessions based on revised data. [Extracted from the article]

The increasing number and diversity of crises in the world economy, both at the macroeconomic and the microeconomic level, justify the consistent theoretical and practical concerns regarding resilience. Our paper aims to evaluate Romanian companies' resilience by investigating the way they addressed the recent pandemic crisis. More concretely, our research is focused on identifying the most important crisis affecting each company and its industry. We analyze their impact on the firm's activity and performance, identify the perceived factors that could help the company to overcome the crisis, and investigate the efficiency of the measures implemented by the Romanian companies in order to overcome the most significant crises they faced. To achieve our research objectives, we conducted in-depth interviews on a sample of 63 respondents who are decision makers in their companies (entrepreneurs, managers, administrators, sales directors, and brand managers), and we used the interview guide as a research instrument for collecting the relevant qualitative data. The main results indicate that the most important crisis affecting these companies are related to issues in their specific field of activity (such as legal regulations, political factors), general country characteristics (socio-demographic or legislative factors) and global factors (such as a global economic crisis, the recent COVID-19 pandemic). These crises affected the firms on the financial, organizational, and marketing levels, but most of the analyzed companies found different ways to adjust and to overcome the crisis. The results are all the more important, as there is a lack of studies on how companies reacted to the recent pandemic in emerging economies, especially in Romania, in order to identify best practices and relevant experiences for potential future crises.

The primary objective of this article is to estimate how the spike in oil prices has impacted Saudi Arabia's output and other macroeconomic indicators. To address this question, the study utilizes a simple VAR estimation and VAR estimation with sign restrictions, specifically an oil demand shock and an oil supply shock, to determine the influence of oil price shocks. The study's findings are consistent with conventional wisdom and current research from oil-exporting countries. Consistent with all model specifications for both periods (monthly 2010q1 to 2020q2 and quarterly 1996q1 to 2020q2), the study finds that an oil price shock benefits the Saudi Arabian economy. The results indicate that a 10% increase in oil prices leads to a 2% increase in output, a 0.15 percentage point increase in the consumer price index, a 6% increase in export value, and a 3% increase in import value. The study highlights the importance of considering both oil supply and demand shocks in analyzing the impact of oil price fluctuations and concludes that the demand shock is more influential than the supply shock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This is the first empirical study that analyzes the nature of business cycles in India using quarterly GDP growth data from 1998Q1 to 2022Q4 and the Markov Switching Auto-regressive model. In order to capture the impact of exclusion and inclusion of post pandemic period data, it has developed two alternative models. Based on these models, the study provides the forecast of quarterly GDP growth and cumulative real output losses due to the pandemic. It also provides alternative scenarios and trajectories of the Indian economy towards the US$ 5 trillion milestone. It is our hope that these results will be useful to policymakers and other stakeholders to understand the business cycle issue in India and take appropriate strategies to overcome the problems associated with these cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an estimated New Keynesian model of a commodity-exporting economy for an integrated policy framework, integrating the full range of policies used in practice and featuring a range of nominal and real rigidities, macro-financial linkages, and transmission channels of external shocks. We jointly examine the optimal conduct of conventional and unconventional monetary policies, macroprudential policy, foreign exchange intervention, capital flow management, and fiscal policy based on the model. The policy analysis framework is applied empirically to Mongolia, a small open and developing economy highly dependent on imports and commodity exports. We find that an eclectic policy mix improves policy trade-offs and a lack of cooperation among policy authorities may result in conflicting policies, hence suboptimal results for overall economic stability. Our optimal policy analysis shows that policy mix adjustments should differ depending on the type of shocks and the policy objectives. The results suggest that the policy analysis framework can help policymakers choose their policy mix adjustments to deal with external shocks in an integrated and optimal way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In this paper, the author aims to investigate the relationship between economic growth and unemployment in six Arab countries from Middle East and North Africa (MENA) zone including Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan and Oman through the implementation of Okun's law using quarterly dataset covering the time period 2000: 1–2014: 4. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, static and dynamic linear and nonlinear models are used to test the linkage between cyclical unemployment and cyclical growth rate. Findings: The empirical results from considered models confirm an inverse linkage between unemployment rate and economic growth, as the Okun's law suggests (except for Oman). In a nonlinear autoregressive dynamic linear (NARDL) framework and gap specification, statistically significant Okun's coefficients indicate that output growth can be translated into employment gains. Absolute effect of an economic contraction is significantly larger than that of an expansion in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Lebanon. The opposite is true for Jordan and Oman. Practical implications: Empirical finding provides then an additional proof that Okun's law could exist in a developing countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon and Jordan. Hence, any attempt to increase gross domestic product (GDP) through some economic fiscal and/or monetary policies in these countries would reduce unemployment rate. Originality/value: Based on asymmetric specification, the author can conclude with precision that an economic upturn of 3.37, 2.98 and 2.5%, respectively, in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt reduces unemployment by 1%, whilst the downturn of 5.03 and 2.43% (and about 12%), respectively, in Tunisia and Morocco (and Lebanon and Jordan) achieves the opposite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the magnitude and cyclicality of transitions into and out of the labour force, the literature generally considers unemployment as a sufficient statistic of labour market slack. We question this view by jointly estimating natural unemployment and participation rates through a Phillips curve informed by structural labour market flows. Focusing on Italy, a country where flows into and out of the labour force are particularly large, we find that the participation margin accounts for a significant share of total slack and explains one-third of the missing inflation that followed the 2011 Sovereign Debt Crisis. Exploiting a reform that sharply and unexpectedly increased the statutory retirement age and expanded labour supply without directly affecting unemployment, we confirm that neglecting the participation gap biases inflation forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, political rhetoric implying international trade hinder employment has gained momentum. We argue that the dynamics between the unemployment rate and the current account balance have both economic and political relevance. The presence of cointegration between the unemployment rate and the current account balance to GDP ratio and the nature of their short-run fluctuations will help us analyze the dynamics between the two objectively to evaluate the political rhetoric. We use quarterly data from 1948: Q1 to 2020: Q1 on the unemployment rate and current account balance to GDP ratio in the United States. Traditional cointegration tests fail to detect any cointegration. However, threshold cointegration tests confirm statistical evidence of threshold cointegration between the two. The estimated threshold vector error-correction model shows statistically significant evidence of falling unemployment rate coupled with deteriorating current account balance. This finding indicates that as unemployment rates go down, the current account balance deteriorates to maintain the long-run co-movement. Arguably, as the unemployment rate decline, concurrently imports rise faster than exports causing the current account balance to deteriorate. This finding thereby refutes the political rhetoric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of studies depart from the rational expectations assumption to reconcile survey expectations with asset prices. While surveys are helpful to establish a link between subjective beliefs and investment decisions, precise inference about how investors depart from rational expectations can be challenging without relying on strong assumptions. In this article, we provide direct experimental evidence of how systematic distortions in investors' expectations affect their risk-taking across market cycles. As mechanism, we identify an asymmetry in how individuals update their expectations across boom and bust markets. The documented mechanism is consistent with survey data and provides important implications for recently proposed asset pricing models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a labor search model with heterogenous households and firms to study the efficacy of a wage subsidy during a pandemic, relative to enhancing unemployment benefits. A large proportion of the economy is forced to shut down, and firms in that sector choose whether to lay off workers or keep them on payroll. A wage subsidy encourages firms to keep workers on payroll, which speeds up labor market recovery after the pandemic ends. However, a wage subsidy can be costlier than enhancing unemployment benefits. If the shutdown is long or profit margins are low, then a wage subsidy is preferable and vice versa. The optimal mixture of policies includes a wage subsidy that covers 90 $\%$ of the first $200/week of earnings and expands unemployment benefits to cover all salary up to $275/week. Low-income workers, as well as those in less productive jobs, benefit the most from a wage subsidy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the macroeconomic effects of seven key TCJA provisions, including the tax cuts for individuals and businesses, the bonus depreciation of equipment, the amortization of R&D expenses, and the limits on interest deductibility. I use a dynamic general equilibrium model with interest deductibility and accelerated depreciation. I find that, initially, the tax reform had a small positive effect on output and investment. In the medium term, however, the effect on output will diminish, and the effect on investment will turn negative. The tax reform will depress investment in R&D. Government debt will surge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACTWe develop a fiscal dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model for policy simulation and scenario analysis purposes tailored to Latvia, a small open economy in a monetary union. The fiscal sector elements comprise public investment, public consumption, government transfers that are asymmetrically directed to both optimizing and restricted (hand-to-mouth) households, cyclical unemployment benefits, foreign ownership of public debt, import content in public consumption and investment, and fiscal rules for each fiscal instrument. The model features a search-and-matching labour market friction with pro-cyclical labour costs, a financial accelerator mechanism, and import content in final goods. We estimate the model using Latvian data, study the new channels in the model, and provide a comprehensive analysis on the macroeconomic effects of the fiscal elements. Our results indicate that Latvian fiscal policy was pro-cyclical during the boom-bust period of 2004–2010 and that foreign ownership of public debt breaks Ricardian equivalence and raises fiscal multipliers.

This article studies the impact of the Great Recession on the relationship between reallocation and productivity dynamics in Lithuania. Using detailed micro-level data, we first document the aggregate contribution of firm dynamics and employment reallocation to productivity growth. Next, we estimate firm-level regressions to confirm the findings and to perform a heterogeneity analysis. The analysis shows that productivity shielded firms from exit, and that this relationship became stronger during the Great Recession. Moreover, we demonstrate that more productive firms experienced on average lower employment losses, especially during the economic slump. Taken together, our results suggest that reallocation was productivity-enhancing during the Great Recession. However, the analysis also indicates that the intensity varied with the sector's dependence on external financing or international trade as well as market concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We integrate bank and bond financing into a two-sector neoclassical growth model and identify an automatic stabilization effect due to endogenous bank leverage adjustment. We show that although bank leverage amplifies shocks, the increase of leverage due to a decline in bank equity partially offsets the post crisis decline of bank lending and accelerates economic recovery by reducing the persistence of the bank lending channel. In this case, endogenous leverage adjustment is an automatic stabilizer. Regulatory state-independent capital limits and wage rigidities impair the re-allocation of capital between sectors and weaken this automatic stabilization. A quantitative analysis of the US during the Great Recession shows that the magnitude of automatic stabilization can be significant and informs about potentially high costs of strict capital regulation or wage rigidities during banking crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use an analytically tractable heterogeneous‐agent (HANK) version of the standard New Keynesian model to show how the size of fiscal multipliers depends on (i) the distribution of factor incomes, and (ii) the source of nominal rigidities. With sticky prices but flexible wages, the standard representative‐agent (RANK) model predicts large multipliers because profits fall after a fiscal stimulus and the resulting negative income effect makes the representative worker work harder. Our HANK model, where workers do not own stock, and thus do not receive profit income, predicts smaller fiscal multipliers. In fact, they are smaller with sticky prices than with flexible prices. When wages are the source of nominal rigidity, in contrast, fiscal multipliers are close to one, independently of income heterogeneity and price stickiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate a production‐based general equilibrium model featuring demand‐ and supply‐side uncertainty and an endogenous term premium. Using term structure and macroeconomic data, we find sizable effects of uncertainty on risk premia and business cycle fluctuations. Both demand‐ and supply‐side uncertainty imply large contractions in real activity and an increase in term premia, but supply‐side uncertainty has larger effects on inflation and investment. We introduce a novel analytical decomposition to illustrate how multiple distinct endogenous risk wedges account for these differences. Supply and demand uncertainty are strongly correlated in the beginning of our sample, but decouple after the Great Recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We identify the main shock driving fluctuations in long‐horizon productivity expectations, consistent with theories of TFP news. The identified shock induces strong comovement patterns in output, consumption, investment, employment, and stock prices even though TFP does not change significantly for more than 2 years. A labor search model in which wages are determined by a cash‐flow sharing rule, rather than the present value of match surplus, matches the observed responses to the news shock. The model also matches the empirical patterns of vacancies, labor force participation, hours, and job‐finding rates. The proposed wage rule is consistent with empirical responses of wages to both anticipated and unanticipated productivity changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the theoretical and numerical properties of a prototypical New Keynesian DSGE model featuring endogenous capital accumulation and labour supply. We find that this completely conventional model yields implausible impact results following unanticipated and temporary shocks when the monetary closure rule is changed from a policy rule setting nominal interest rates (a Taylor Rule) to a fixed money supply rule. We compare and contrast a variety of New Keynesian models, featuring aggregate price stickiness, with their New Classical counterparts featuring perfectly flexible prices. In line with the literature we find that under a Taylor Rule the impulse-response functions following a technology shock are very similar. In contrast, with a fixed money supply the impact effects for the New Keynesian model are implausible. We demonstrate the robustness of this Implausible Result to alternative parameter values and show that it is ultimately caused by the inflexibility of the capital stock relative to that of the real money supply. We suggest several model extensions which will eliminate the Implausible Result from New Keynesian sticky-price models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the cyclical patterns of fiscal policy rules using various policy variables that respond to the macroeconomic performance of developed countries over the past few decades. The study reveals that regardless of whether the economy is in a recession or a boom, fiscal policy basically displays counter-cyclical behavior. However, the degree of cyclicality varies depending on the output gap measurements chosen and the countries analyzed. Additionally, the estimates using various fiscal policy indicators demonstrate a strong time variation in fiscal cyclical behavior, resulting in a significant increase in the counter-cyclicality of the fiscal balance. The article also applies the time-varying coefficients vector autoregression model to assess the effects of fiscal policy on output and finds that a boost in the cyclically adjusted primary balance positively impacts production in the short run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing output gap measures for the US economy rely on aggregate data and assume a constant output gap over sectors (see Coibion et al. [(2018) Brookings Papers on Economic Activity , 333–441] and Owyang et al. [(2018) Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review , 297–316]); however, each sector has its cycle, which does not necessarily match the business cycle (Burns and Mitchell [(1946) National Bureau of Economic Research]). By modeling sectoral cycles based on their investment cycles with a nonparametric method, I estimate output gaps of 20 US sectors over 1948–2020. The weighted mean output gap indicates a persistent spare capacity in the last business cycle, pointing to insufficient stabilization policies behind secular stagnation. Phillips curve estimations with the weighted quartiles of sectoral output gaps show that the output gap of bottleneck sectors (weighted Q3) is correlated strongly with inflation over 1950–2020. Policymakers can track bottleneck sectors to mitigate inflationary pressures while supporting the sectors with negative output gaps to stabilize the output at its potential. My findings show that it is possible to produce more output by sector-level demand supporting policies without generating inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emissions are directly linked to economic output and consequently subject to business cycle fluctuations. The present study analyses the interactions between climate policies and business cycles through the lens of a New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. We compare a static cap-and-trade policy with a dynamically adjusting policy in terms of macroeconomic stabilisation, welfare and emissions price dynamics. The results of the quantitative evaluation suggest that a constant policy leads to lower aggregate volatility but is associated with larger welfare costs. In contrast, under the dynamic policy emissions prices and labour markets display less variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]