Credit constraints that link a private agent's debt to market-determined prices embody a systemic credit externality that drives a wedge between competitive and (constrained) socially optimal equilibria, which induces private agents to ``overborrow". We quantify the effects of this externality in a two-sector DSGE model of a small open economy calibrated to emerging markets. Debt is denominated in units of tradable goods, and is constrained not to exceed a fraction of income, including nontradables income valued at the relative price of nontradables. The externality arises because agents fail to internalize the price effects of their individual borrowing, and hence the adverse debt-deflation amplification effects of negative income shocks that trigger a binding credit constraint. Quantitatively, the credit externality causes a modest increase in average debt, of about 2 percentage points of GDP, but it triples the probability of financial crises and doubles the average current account and consumption reversals caused by these crises.
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
16270.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities F20 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - General E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
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