IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpma/0211015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Adverse Selection and the Accelerator

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher L. House

    (University of Michigan)

Abstract

This paper reexamines the relationship between financial market imperfections and economic instability. I present a model in which financial accelerator effects come from adverse selection in credit markets. Unlike other models of the financial accelerator, the model I present has the potential to stabilize the economy rather than destabilize it. The stabilizing forces in the dynamic model are closely related to forces that cause overinvestment in static models. Consequently, the stabilizing properties of the model are not specific to adverse selection but rather are present in any environment in which credit market distortions cause overinvestment. When investment projects are equity financed, or when contracts are written optimally, the only equilibria that emerge are stabilizer equilibria. Thus, stabilizing outcomes are more robust in this model. Finally, the empirical distinction between accelerator equilibria and stabilizer equilibria is subtle. Many statistics used to test for financial accelerators are observationally equivalent in stabilizer equilibria.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher L. House, 2002. "Adverse Selection and the Accelerator," Macroeconomics 0211015, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0211015
    Note: Type of Document - Acrobat PDF; prepared on IBM PC ; to print on HP; pages: 38 ; figures: included
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/mac/papers/0211/0211015.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Gertler, 1988. "Financial structure and aggregate economic activity: an overview," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 559-596.
    2. Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 1994. "Monetary Policy, Business Cycles, and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 309-340.
    3. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1991. "Financial Markets and Financial Crises," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number glen91-1, March.
    4. Azariadis, Costas & Smith, Bruce, 1998. "Financial Intermediation and Regime Switching in Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 516-536, June.
    5. Calomiris, Charles W & Hubbard, R Glenn, 1990. "Firm Heterogeneity, Internal Finance, and 'Credit Rationing.'," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(399), pages 90-104, March.
    6. Cogley, Timothy & Nason, James M, 1995. "Output Dynamics in Real-Business-Cycle Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 492-511, June.
    7. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1996. "The Financial Accelerator and the Flight to Quality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 1-15, February.
    8. Fuerst, Timothy S, 1995. "Monetary and Financial Interactions in the Business Cycle," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(4), pages 1321-1338, November.
    9. Andrea L. Eisfeldt, 2004. "Endogenous Liquidity in Asset Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(1), pages 1-30, February.
    10. Cooper, Russell & Ejarque, João, 2000. "Financial Intermediation And Aggregate Fluctuations: A Quantitative Analysis," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(4), pages 423-447, December.
    11. King, Robert G. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1999. "Resuscitating real business cycles," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 927-1007, Elsevier.
    12. Sean Cleary, 1999. "The Relationship between Firm Investment and Financial Status," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(2), pages 673-692, April.
    13. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 1995. "Inside the Black Box: The Credit Channel of Monetary Policy Transmission," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 27-48, Fall.
    14. Ben Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 1990. "Financial Fragility and Economic Performance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 87-114.
    15. Chirinko, Robert S. & Fazzari, Steven M. & Meyer, Andrew P., 1999. "How responsive is business capital formation to its user cost?: An exploration with micro data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 53-80, October.
    16. Mark Gertler & R. Glenn Hubbard & Anil Kashyap, 1991. "Interest Rate Spreads, Credit Constraints, and Investment Fluctuations: An Empirical Investigation," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Markets and Financial Crises, pages 11-32, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Williamson, Stephen D, 1987. "Financial Intermediation, Business Failures, and Real Business Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(6), pages 1196-1216, December.
    18. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393, Elsevier.
    19. Carlstrom, Charles T & Fuerst, Timothy S, 1997. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 893-910, December.
    20. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    21. Calomiris, Charles W. & Himmelberg, Charles P. & Wachtel, Paul, 1995. "Commercial paper, corporate finance, and the business cycle: a microeconomic perspective," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 203-250, June.
    22. repec:cup:macdyn:v:4:y:2000:i:4:p:423-47 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Greenwald, Bruce & Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1984. "Informational Imperfections in the Capital Market and Macroeconomic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 194-199, May.
    24. Bernanke, Ben S & Blinder, Alan S, 1988. "Credit, Money, and Aggregate Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 435-439, May.
    25. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March.
    26. Bacchetta, Philippe & Caminal, Ramon, 2000. "Do capital market imperfections exacerbate output fluctuations?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 449-468, March.
    27. Azariadis, Costas & Chakraborty, Shankha, 1999. "Agency Costs in Dynamic Economic Models," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(455), pages 222-241, April.
    28. Kashyap, Anil K & Stein, Jeremy C & Wilcox, David W, 1993. "Monetary Policy and Credit Conditions: Evidence from the Composition of External Finance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 78-98, March.
    29. David de Meza & David C. Webb, 1987. "Too Much Investment: A Problem of Asymmetric Information," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(2), pages 281-292.
    30. N. Gregory Mankiw, 1986. "The Allocation of Credit and Financial Collapse," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 455-470.
    31. Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 1993. "The role of credit market imperfections in the monetary transmission mechanism: arguments and evidence," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 93-5, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    32. Gertler, Mark, 1995. "Monetary and Financial Interactions in the Business Cycle: Comment," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(4), pages 1342-1353, November.
    33. William W. Lang & Leonard I. Nakamura, 1992. "\"Flight to quality\" in bank lending and economic activity," Working Papers 92-20, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    34. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 393-410, June.
    35. Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1993. " The Role of Credit Market Imperfections in the Monetary Transmission Mechanism: Arguments and Evidence," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(1), pages 43-64.
    36. Friedman, Benjamin M & Kuttner, Kenneth N, 1992. "Money, Income, Prices, and Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 472-492, June.
    37. Townsend, Robert M., 1979. "Optimal contracts and competitive markets with costly state verification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 265-293, October.
    38. Douglas Gale & Martin Hellwig, 1985. "Incentive-Compatible Debt Contracts: The One-Period Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(4), pages 647-663.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ronel Elul, 2005. "Collateral, credit history, and the financial decelerator," Working Papers 05-23, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    2. House, Christopher L., 2006. "Adverse selection and the financial accelerator," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(6), pages 1117-1134, September.
    3. Giovanno Favara, 2006. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Endogenous Business Fluctuations," 2006 Meeting Papers 400, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Bean, Charles & Larsen, Jens D. J. & Nikolov, Kalin, 2002. "Financial frictions and the monetary transmission mechanism: theory, evidence and policy implications," Working Paper Series 0113, European Central Bank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aadland, David, 2005. "Detrending time-aggregated data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(3), pages 287-293, December.
    2. House, Christopher L., 2006. "Adverse selection and the financial accelerator," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(6), pages 1117-1134, September.
    3. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    4. Fabio ALESSANDRINI, 2003. "Some Additional Evidence from the Credit Channel on the Response to Monetary Shocks: Looking for Asymmetries," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 03.04, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    5. Hovakimian, Gayané, 2011. "Financial constraints and investment efficiency: Internal capital allocation across the business cycle," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 264-283, April.
    6. Fachat, Christian, 2000. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and the Transmission Mechanism of Monetary Policy," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 2/2000, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    7. Smant, David / D.J.C., 2002. "Bank credit in the transmission of monetary policy: A critical review of the issues and evidence," MPRA Paper 19816, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2022. "Financial Intermediation and the Economy," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2022-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    9. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1996. "The Financial Accelerator and the Flight to Quality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 1-15, February.
    10. Fachat, Christian, 2000. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and the Credit Channel of Monetary Transmission," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 3/2000, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    11. Bougheas, Spiros & Mizen, Paul & Yalcin, Cihan, 2006. "Access to external finance: Theory and evidence on the impact of monetary policy and firm-specific characteristics," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 199-227, January.
    12. Riccardo Fiorentini & Roberto Tamborini, 2002. "Monetary Policy, Credit and Aggregate Supply: The Evidence from Italy," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 31(3), pages 451-491, November.
    13. Philip Lowe & Thomas Rohling, 1993. "Agency Costs, Balance Sheets and the Business Cycle," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9311, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    14. Frédéric Boissay & Pierre Malgrange, 1997. "Intégration monétaire et financière dans les modèles macro­économiques : bilan et nouvelles pistes," Revue Française d'Économie, Programme National Persée, vol. 12(3), pages 3-42.
    15. Riccardo Fiorentini & Roberto Tamborini, 2001. "The Monetary Transmission Mechanism in Italy: The Credit Channel and a Missing Ring," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 60(1), pages 1-42, June.
    16. Stein, Jeremy C., 2003. "Agency, information and corporate investment," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 111-165, Elsevier.
    17. Stöß, Elmar, 1996. "Enterprises' financing structure and their response to monetary policy stimuli: An analysis based on the Deutsche Bundesbank's corporate balance sheet statistics," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 1996,09e, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    18. Mr. Fabian Valencia, 2008. "Banks’ Precautionary Capital and Persistent Credit Crunches," IMF Working Papers 2008/248, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Repullo, Rafael & Suarez, Javier, 2000. "Entrepreneurial moral hazard and bank monitoring: A model of the credit channel," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1931-1950, December.
    20. Bacchetta, Philippe & Caminal, Ramon, 2000. "Do capital market imperfections exacerbate output fluctuations?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 449-468, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    subliminal extant Smith economagic gmm;

    JEL classification:

    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:0211015. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.