The US Great Depression and Japan's lost decade in the 1990s are both characterized as persistent stagnations of economies with debt-ridden corporate sectors subsequent to asset-price collapses. We propose a simple model, in which increases in corporate debt (and/or fluctuations in expectations about the future state of the economy) can account for these episodes. Key ingredients are the assumptions that firms are subject to collateral constraint on liquidity for financing the inputs, and that the firms can hold other firms' stocks as their assets and use them as the collateral. Collateral constraint on inputs interlinks the financial market inefficiency with the factor market inefficiencies; and that the corporate stocks are used as collateral generates an externality of self-reference in stock prices and production, that is, higher stock prices loosen the collateral constraint and lead to higher efficiencies in production, which in turn justify the higher stock prices. It is shown that there exists a continuum of steady-state equilibria indexed by the amount of debt that the firms owe to the consumers: A steady state with a larger debt can be called a debt-ridden equilibrium, since it has more inefficient factor markets, produces less output, and is characterized by lower stock prices. The model provides the policy implication that debt reduction in the corporate sector at the expense of consumers (or taxpayers) may be welfare-improving when the firms are debt-ridden.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI) in its series Discussion papers with number
07035.
Length: 23 pages Date of creation: Jun 2007 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:07035
Contact details of provider: Postal: 11th floor, Annex, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) 1-3-1, Kasumigaseki Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 100-8901 Phone: +81-3-3501-1363 Fax: +81-3-3501-8577 Email: Web page: http://www.rieti.go.jp/ More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (TAKIZAWA Itsuko).
Related research
Keywords:
Other versions of this item:
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Jess Benhabib & Stephanie Schmitt-Grohe & Martin Uribe, 2002.
"Avoiding Liquidity Traps,"
Journal of Political Economy,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 535-563, June.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Benhabib, J. & Schmitt-Grohe, S. & Uribe, M., 1999.
"Avoiding Liquidity Traps,"
Working Papers
99-21, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
[Downloadable!]
Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Moore, John, 1997.
"Credit Cycles,"
Journal of Political Economy,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 211-48, April.
Other versions:
Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & John Moore, 1995.
"Credit Cycles,"
NBER Working Papers
5083, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
John Moore & Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, .
"Credit Cycles,"
Discussion Papers
1995-5, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
V. V. Chari & Patrick Kehoe & Ellen McGrattan, 2004.
"Business Cycle Accounting,"
Levine's Bibliography
122247000000000560, UCLA Department of Economics.
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2006.
"Business cycle accounting,"
Staff Report
328, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
[Downloadable!]
V.V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen McGrattan, 2004.
"Business Cycle Accounting,"
NBER Working Papers
10351, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2007.
"Business Cycle Accounting,"
Econometrica,
Econometric Society, vol. 75(3), pages 781-836, 05.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)