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Financial development and economic volatility: a unified explanation

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  • Pengfei Wang
  • Yi Wen

Abstract

Empirical studies showed that firm-level volatility has been increasing but the aggregate volatility has been decreasing in the US for the post-war period. This paper proposes a unified explanation for these diverging trends. Our explanation is based on a story of financial development - measured by the reduction of borrowing constraints because of greater access to external financing and options for risk sharing. By constructing a dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model of heterogenous firms facing borrowing constraints and investment irreversibility, it is shown that financial liberalization increases the lumpiness of firm-level investment but decreases the variance of aggregate output. Hence, the model predicts that financial development leads to a larger firm-level volatility but a lower aggregate volatility. In addition, our model is also consistent with the observed decline in volatility of private held firms which do not have (or have only limited) access to external funds.

Suggested Citation

  • Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2009. "Financial development and economic volatility: a unified explanation," Working Papers 2009-022, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2009-022
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    Cited by:

    1. Jeremy Greenwood & Juan M. Sanchez & Cheng Wang, 2010. "Financing Development: The Role of Information Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1875-1891, September.
    2. Yang Jiao & Yi Wen, 2012. "Capital, finance, and trade collapse," Working Papers 2012-003, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    3. Yi Wen, 2014. "QE: when and how should the Fed exit?," Working Papers 2014-16, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    4. Zhu, Xiaoyang & Asimakopoulos, Stylianos & Kim, Jaebeom, 2020. "Financial development and innovation-led growth: Is too much finance better?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    5. Yi Wen, 2013. "Evaluating unconventional monetary policies -why aren’t they more effective?," Working Papers 2013-028, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    6. Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2012. "Speculative Bubbles and Financial Crises," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 184-221, July.
    7. Jianjun Miao & Pengfei Wang, "undated". "Does Lumpy Investment Matter for Business Cycles?," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series wp2010-002, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    8. Davide Furceri & Stéphanie Guichard & Elena Rusticelli, 2012. "Episodes of Large Capital Inflows, Banking and Currency Crises, and Sudden Stops," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(1), pages 1-35, April.
    9. Yi Wen, 2014. "When and how to exit quantitative easing?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 96(3), pages 243-265.

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