Understanding the Great Recession

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Christiano, Lawrence J.; Eichenbaum, Martin S.; Trabandt, Mathias
• 署名单位: Northwestern University; Federal Reserve System - USA
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20140104
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 110-167
• 关键词: nominal rigidities; business cycles; monetary-policy; technology shocks; cyclical behavior; unemployment; equilibrium; VACANCIES; models; COSTS

摘要

We argue that the vast bulk of movements in aggregate real economic activity during the Great Recession were due to financial frictions. We reach this conclusion by looking through the lens of an estimated New Keynesian model in which firms face moderate degrees of price rigidities, no nominal rigidities in wages, and a binding zero lower bound constraint on the nominal interest rate. Our model does a good job of accounting for the joint behavior of labor and goods markets, as well as inflation, during the Great Recession. According to the model the observed fall in total factor productivity and the rise in the cost of working capital played critical roles in accounting for the small drop in inflation that occurred during the Great Recession.