The paper analyzes an endogenous mechanism leading perfectly symmetric economies to diverge in the long run after unifying their financial asset markets. The standard OLG growth model is extended to include uncertainty and a financial asset used to transfer ownership of the proceeds of an exogenous random production process between generations. Consumers are risk averse, implying that consumers...

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Price range CARR Financial crisis Smooth transition copula Volatility contagion REIT We use a newly-developed time-varying range-based volatility model to capture the dynamics of securi-tized real estate volatility. The novelty of the model is the use of a smooth transition copula function to capture the nonlinear comovements between major REIT markets in the pre...

The need for effective safety nets and social security has been highlighted by the recent crisis in East-Asia. In other parts of the developing world or in transition economies, the large economic fluctuations, climatic shocks and natural disasters also demand further development of support systems during crises. In this paper, we discuss the role played by self-insurance (via savings) in the p...

The small open economy model with incomplete asset markets features a steady-state that depends on initial conditions and equilibrium dynamics that possess a random walk component. A number of modifications to the standard model have been proposed to induce stationarity. This paper presents a quantitative comparison of these alternative approaches. Five different specifications are considered: ...

Promising emerging equity markets often witness investment herds and frenzies, accompanied by an abundance of media coverage. Complementarity in information acquisition can explain these anomalies. Because information has a high fixed cost of production, its equilibrium price is low when quantity is high. Investors all buy the most popular information because it has the lowest price. Given two ...

We study the efficiency of dealers’ liquidity provision and the desirability of policy intervention in over-the-counter (OTC) markets during crises. Our theory emphasizes two key frictions in OTC markets: finding counterparties takes time, and trade is bilateral, with quantities and prices determined by bargaining. We model a crisis as a negative shock to investors’ asset demands that lasts unt...

A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium monetary model with incomplete asset markets, nominal price rigidities and market imperfections is developed to shed light on the role of exchange rate and its relation with current account dynamics in the formulation of monetary policy. In the recent literature, labelled as new open economy macroeconomics (NOEM), the dynamics of current account do not m...

Systemic risk builds up endogenously during booms in an economy featuring asymmetric information in asset markets, where investors’ hidden effort choices determine asset quality distribution. Higher asset prices in booms induce more investors to sell their assets, which lowers their incentive to improve quality. This quality deterioration in turn makes the economy vulnerable to future exogenous...

Coffee is both an important source of export revenue for developing countries and the underlying asset for the largest futures markets in soft commodities. This paper examines the interdependence of these spot and futures markets, with particular emphasis on the effect futures trading activity, especially speculative behaviour, has on the price risk in spot markets. We identify change points as...