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Disasters Everywhere: The Costs of Business Cycles Reconsidered

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Abstract

Business cycles are costlier and stabilization policies more beneficial than widely thought. This paper shows that all business cycles are asymmetric and resemble mini “disasters”. By this we mean that growth is pervasively fat-tailed and non-Gaussian. Using long-run historical data, we show empirically that this is true for all advanced economies since 1870. Focusing on the peacetime sample, we develop a tractable local projection framework to estimate consumption growth paths for normal and financial-crisis recessions. Using random coefficient local projections we get an easy and transparent mapping from the estimates to the calibrated simulation model. Simulations show that substantial welfare costs arise not just from the large rare disasters, but also from the smaller but more frequent mini-disasters in every cycle. In postwar America, households would sacrifice more than 10 percent of consumption to avoid such cyclical fluctuations.

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  • Òscar Jordà & Moritz Schularick & Alan M. Taylor, 2020. "Disasters Everywhere: The Costs of Business Cycles Reconsidered," Working Paper Series 2020-11, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfwp:87712
    DOI: 10.24148/wp2020-11
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    Cited by:

    1. Òscar Jordà & Martin Kornejew & Moritz Schularick & Alan M Taylor, 2022. "Zombies at Large? Corporate Debt Overhang and the Macroeconomy," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 35(10), pages 4561-4586.
    2. Abdoulaye Millogo, 2020. "Hysteresis Effects and Macroeconomics Gains from Unconventional Monetary Policies Stabilization," Cahiers de recherche 20-12, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    3. Kuvshinov, Dmitry & Richter, Björn & Zimmermann, Kaspar, 2022. "The shifts and the shocks: bank risk, leverage, and the macroeconomy," Working Paper Series 2672, European Central Bank.
    4. Cezar, Rafael & Monnet, Eric, 2023. "Capital controls and foreign reserves against external shocks: Combined or alone?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    5. Basco, Sergi & Domènech, Jordi & Rosés, Joan R., 2021. "The redistributive effects of pandemics: Evidence on the Spanish flu," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    6. Toan Phan & Felipe Schwartzman, 2023. "Climate Defaults and Financial Adaptation," Working Paper 23-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    7. Iqbal, Javed & Mahmood, Fatima & Nosheen, Misbah & Wohar, Mark, 2023. "The asymmetric impact of exchange rate misalignment on economic growth of India: An application of Hodrick–Prescott filter technique," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 809-823.
    8. Ferreira, Thiago R.T., 2024. "Cross-sectional financial conditions, business cycles and the lending channel," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    9. repec:tin:wpaper:220063 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Fève, Patrick & Sanchez, Pablo Garcia & Moura, Alban & Pierrard, Olivier, 2021. "Costly default and skewed business cycles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    11. James Mitchell & Martin Weale, 2023. "Censored density forecasts: Production and evaluation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(5), pages 714-734, August.
    12. Iseringhausen, Martin & Petrella, Ivan & Theodoridis, Konstantinos, 2021. "Aggregate Skewness and the Business Cycle," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2021/30, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    13. Alogoskoufis, George & Malliaris, A.G. & Stengos, Thanasis, 2023. "The scope and methodology of economic and financial asymmetries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    14. Logachov, A. & Logachova, O. & Yambartsev, A., 2024. "Processes with catastrophes: Large deviation point of view," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    15. Moritz Schularick, 2021. "Corporate indebtedness and macroeconomic stabilisation from a long-term perspective," ECONtribute Policy Brief Series 024, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.

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    JEL classification:

    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • 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

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