Cross-sectional Uncertainty and the Business Cycle

Cross-sectional Uncertainty and the Business Cycle PDF Author: Ian Dew-Becker
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This paper presents a novel and unique measure of cross-sectional uncertainty constructed from stock options on individual firms. Cross-sectional uncertainty varied little between 1980 and 1995, and subsequently had three distinct peaks -- during the tech boom, the financial crisis, and the coronavirus epidemic. Cross-sectional uncertainty has had a mixed relationship with overall economic activity, and aggregate uncertainty is much more powerful for forecasting aggregate growth. The data and moments can be used to calibrate and test structural models of the effects of uncertainty shocks. In international data, we find similar dynamics and a strong common factor in cross-sectional uncertainty. The data is available on our websites. A companion paper [Dew-Becker and Giglio, "Real-time forward-looking skewness over the business cycle"] finds firm-level skewness is significantly procyclical.

Cross-sectional Uncertainty and the Business Cycle

Cross-sectional Uncertainty and the Business Cycle PDF Author: Ian Dew-Becker
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This paper presents a novel and unique measure of cross-sectional uncertainty constructed from stock options on individual firms. Cross-sectional uncertainty varied little between 1980 and 1995, and subsequently had three distinct peaks -- during the tech boom, the financial crisis, and the coronavirus epidemic. Cross-sectional uncertainty has had a mixed relationship with overall economic activity, and aggregate uncertainty is much more powerful for forecasting aggregate growth. The data and moments can be used to calibrate and test structural models of the effects of uncertainty shocks. In international data, we find similar dynamics and a strong common factor in cross-sectional uncertainty. The data is available on our websites. A companion paper [Dew-Becker and Giglio, "Real-time forward-looking skewness over the business cycle"] finds firm-level skewness is significantly procyclical.

Business-Cycle Variation in Macroeconomic Uncertainty and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns

Business-Cycle Variation in Macroeconomic Uncertainty and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns PDF Author: Georgios Xyngis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A single factor that captures assets' exposure to business-cycle variation in macroeconomic uncertainty can explain the level and cross-sectional differences of asset returns. Specifically, based on portfolio-level tests I demonstrate that fluctuations in uncertainty with persistence ranging from 32 to 128 months carry a negative price of risk of about -2% annually. The price of risk for fluctuations with persistence outside of this range and for the raw series of aggregate uncertainty is insignificant. Also, equity exposures are negative and hence the corresponding risk premia are positive. I quantify macroeconomic uncertainty using the model-free index of Jurado et al. (2015) derived from monthly, quarterly and annual forecasts.

Uncertainty, Expectations, and the Business Cycle

Uncertainty, Expectations, and the Business Cycle PDF Author: Jan Hannes Lang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business cycles
Languages : en
Pages : 131

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Book Description
This thesis adds to the recent quantitative literature that considers variations in uncertainty as impulses driving the business cycle. In chapter one a flexible partial equilibrium model that features heterogeneous firms, uncertainty shocks and various forms of capital adjustment costs is built in order to reassess whether temporarily higher uncertainty can cause recessions. It is then shown that while uncertainty shocks to demand can cause the bust, rebound and overshoot dynamics reminiscent of recessions, uncertainty shocks to total factor productivity are likely to lead to considerable and prolonged booms in economic activity. The reason for this result is that while the expectational effect of uncertainty shocks is negative and similar in magnitude for both types of uncertainty shocks, the positive distributional effect is an order of magnitude larger for total factor productivity than for demand. Chapter two then derives and implements an identification strategy for uncertainty shocks within a Structural Vector Autoregression framework that is consistent with the way these shocks are commonly modeled in the literature. For the US it is shown that such model consistent uncertainty shocks lead to considerable booms in investment and employment and only explain a small fraction of the variation in the cross-sectional sales variance. Once uncertainty shocks are identified as the shocks that only affect dispersion upon impact, they cause a moderate drop, rebound and overshoot of investment and a large increase in the cross-sectional dispersion of revenues. The results suggest that the standard timing assumption that the expectational effect of uncertainty shocks leads the distributional effect seems questionable. Finally, chapter three analyses endogenous variations in uncertainty and their effect on aggregate dynamics that result from imperfect information in the presence of occasional regime shifts. In a tentative model parameterization to the German manufacturing industry during the Financial Crisis it is shown that after a temporary regime shift imperfect information leads endogenously to higher forecast standard errors compared to full information, as well as higher cross-sectional dispersion of mean forecasts and forecast standard errors. It is then shown that these endogenous variations in uncertainty can lead to considerable downward amplification and some propagation of aggregate investment and revenues during a temporary downward regime shift.

Uncertainty and Unemployment

Uncertainty and Unemployment PDF Author: Sangyup Choi
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1498356303
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
We study the role of uncertainty shocks in explaining unemployment dynamics, separating out the role of aggregate and sectoral channels. Using S&P500 data from the first quarter of 1957 to third quarter of 2014, we construct separate indices to measure aggregate and sectoral uncertainty and compare their effects on the unemployment rate in a standard macroeconomic vector autoregressive (VAR) model. We find that aggregate uncertainty leads to an immediate increase in unemployment, with the impact dissipating within a year. In contrast, sectoral uncertainty has a long-lived impact on unemployment, with the peak impact occurring after two years. The results are consistent with a view that the impact of aggregate uncertainty occurs through a “wait-and-see” mechanism while increased sectoral uncertainty raises unemployment by requiring greater reallocation across sectors.

Learning, Confidence, and Business Cycles

Learning, Confidence, and Business Cycles PDF Author: Cosmin L. Ilut
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business cycles
Languages : en
Pages : 59

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Book Description
We build a tractable heterogeneous-firm business cycle model where firms face Knightian uncertainty about their profitability and learn it through production. The cross-sectional mean of firm-level uncertainty is high in recessions because firms invest and hire less. The higher uncertainty reduces agents' confidence and further discourages economic activity. We characterize this feedback mechanism in linear, workhorse macroeconomic models and find that it endogenously generates empirically desirable cross-equation restrictions such as: amplified and hump-shaped dynamics, co-movement driven by demand shocks and countercyclical correlated wedges in the equilibrium conditions for labor, risk-free and risky assets. In a rich model estimated on US macroeconomic and financial data, the information friction changes inference and significantly reduces the empirical need for standard real and nominal rigidities. Furthermore, endogenous idiosyncratic uncertainty propagates shocks to financial conditions, disciplined by observed spreads, as key drivers of fluctuations, and magnifies the aggregate activity's response to monetary and fiscal policies.

Uncertainty Shocks and Business Cycle Research

Uncertainty Shocks and Business Cycle Research PDF Author: Jesús Fernández-Villaverde
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business cycles
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
We review the literature on uncertainty shocks and business cycle research. First, we motivate the study of uncertainty shocks by documenting the presence of time-variation in the volatility of macroeconomic time series. Second, we enumerate the mechanisms that researchers have postulated to link uncertainty shocks and business cycles. Third, we outline how we can specify uncertainty shocks. Fourth, we postulate a real business cycle model augmented with financial frictions and uncertainty shocks. Fifth, we use the model to illustrate our previous discussions and to show how uncertainty shocks can be expansionary.

Cycles, Growth and the Great Recession

Cycles, Growth and the Great Recession PDF Author: Annalisa Cristini
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780415748193
Category : BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Cycles, Growth and the Great Recession is a collection of papers that assess the nature and role of the business cycle in contemporary economies. These assessments are made in the context of the financial market instability that distinguishes the Great Recession from previous post-war slowdowns. Theorists and applied scholars in the fields of economics and mathematical economics discuss various approaches to understanding cycles and growth, and present mathematical and applied macro models to show how uncertainty shapes cycles by affecting the economic agent choice. Also included is an empirical section that investigates how the Great Recession affected households' housing wealth, labour productivity and migration decisions. This book aims to: Propose a novel understanding of the business cycle by comparing the approaches of various scholars, starting from Hyman Minsky and Piero Ferri. Show that uncertainty is a main feature of the business cycle that affects decision-making and economic behaviour in general. Explain with mathematical models how the behaviour of economic agents can lead to cyclical paths for modern developed economies. Augment theory with empirical analysis of some central issues related to the Great Recession. This book comprises an original view of such widely discussed subjects as business cycles, uncertainty, economic growth and the Great Recession, constructed around theory, models and applications.

Uncertainty Shocksand Business Cycle Research

Uncertainty Shocksand Business Cycle Research PDF Author: Jesús Fernández-Villaverde
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description
We review the literature on uncertainty shocks and business cycle research. First, we motivate the study of uncertainty shocks by documenting the presence of time-variation in the volatility of macroeconomic time series. Second, we enumerate the mechanisms that researchers have postulated to link uncertainty shocks and business cycles. Third, we outline how we can specify uncertainty shocks. Fourth, we postulate a real business cycle model augmented with financial frictions and uncertainty shocks. Fifth, we use the model to illustrate our previous discussions and to show how uncertainty shocks can be expansionary.

China's Growing Role in World Trade

China's Growing Role in World Trade PDF Author: Robert C. Feenstra
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226239721
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 603

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Book Description
In less than three decades, China has grown from playing a negligible role in international trade to being one of the world's largest exporters, a substantial importer of raw materials, intermediate outputs, and other goods, and both a recipient and source of foreign investment. Not surprisingly, China's economic dynamism has generated considerable attention and concern in the United States and beyond. While some analysts have warned of the potential pitfalls of China's rise—the loss of jobs, for example—others have highlighted the benefits of new market and investment opportunities for US firms. Bringing together an expert group of contributors, China's Growing Role in World Trade undertakes an empirical investigation of the effects of China's new status. The essays collected here provide detailed analyses of the microstructure of trade, the macroeconomic implications, sector-level issues, and foreign direct investment. This volume's careful examination of micro data in light of established economic theories clarifies a number of misconceptions, disproves some conventional wisdom, and documents data patterns that enhance our understanding of China's trade and what it may mean to the rest of the world.

Business Cycles and Financial Crises

Business Cycles and Financial Crises PDF Author: A. W. Mullineux
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
Studies the nature of business cycles