bubbles and total factor productivity evidence shows that asset price bubbles typically precede financial crises and financial crises are accompanied by the collapse of bubbles in addition stock market booms and busts are typically associated with credit market booms and busts the recent us housing and stock market bubbles and the subsequent great recession that began in late 2007 provide an example the stock market booms in the early 1990s and the subsequent asian financial crisis in 1997 provide another example there are also many other related episodes of financial crises in emerging economies motivated by these observations miao and wang 2011a propose a theory of credit driven stock price bubbles we show that a positive feedback loop mechanism generates stock price bubbles when firms borrow against the stock market value of their collateralized assets to finance investment we assume that firms face stochastic investment opportunities and bubbles improve investment efficiency we also study stochastic bubbles and policy implications in the present paper we apply the theory developed by miao and wang 2011a to an environment in which firms face idiosyncratic productivity shocks and credit constraints we show that both bubbleless and bubbly equilibria bubbles and financial crisis

banking bubbles and financial crises this paper develops a tractable macroeconomic model with a banking sector in which banks face endogenous borrowing constraints there is no uncertainty about economic fundamentals banking bubbles can emerge through a positive feedback loop mechanism changes in household confidence can cause the bubbles to burst resulting in a financial crisis credit policy can mitigate economic downturns the welfare gain is larger when the government interventions are more front loaded given that the government injects the same amount of liquidity in terms of present value bank capital requirements can prevent the formation of banking bubbles by limiting leverage but if too restrictive will lead to less lending and hence lower production

forward exchange rates and expectations during the 1920s a re examination of the evidence abstract the philips hansen fully modified wald test is used to analyze whether or not the forward rate is an unbiased predictor of the future spot rate for the 1920s daily data for five exchange rates german mark belgium franc french franc italian lira and us dollar versus the british pound are examined the results suggest that the forward unbiasedness hypothesis can be rejected in three belgium franc french franc and german mark out of the five currencies this result may be due to the presence of a risk premium for the belgian and french francs and to market failure in the case of the german mark the forward and future spot exchange rates are cointegrated jel f31

switching bubbles from outside to inside bubbles abstract the united states has recently experienced two asset price bubbles the dot com and the housing bubbles these bubbles had very different effects on investment and debt of manufacturing firms in this paper i develop a framework to understand the differential effect of two types of rational bubbles i distinguish between i outside bubbles which i define as savers purchasing and selling costless assets not attached to inputs of production and ii inside bubbles which i define as savers buying an input of production e g land or houses only as a store of value the model is an olg economy with savers and entrepreneurs savers save to consume when they are old entrepreneurs can borrow to invest but they face a collateral constraint in this environment rational bubbles can emerge i show that the size of an inside bubble is larger i also find that when the economy switches from an outside to an inside bubble manufacturing or non housing investment and debt is lower consistent with the u s experience finally i show that even though steady state consumption is higher with an outside bubble a social planner would prefer an inside bubble when the productivity of entrepreneurs is low

debt deleveraging and the liquidity trap a fisher minsky koo approach in this paper we present a simple new keynesian style model of debt driven slumps that is situations in which an overhang of debt on the part of some agents who are forced into rapid deleveraging is depressing aggregate demand making some agents debt constrained is a surprisingly powerful assumption fisherian debt deflation the possibility of a liquidity trap the paradox of thrift a keynesiantype multiplier and a rationale for expansionary fiscal policy all emerge naturally from the model we argue that this approach sheds considerable light both on current economic difficulties and on historical episodes including japan s lost decade now in its 18th year and the great depression itself

the effect of business risk on corporate capital structure theory and evidence under corporate and personal taxation we demonstrate that the relation between optimal debt level and business risk is roughly u shaped this result follows from the fact that the tax liability is an option portfolio that is long in the corporate tax option and short in the personal tax option therefore the net effect of a change in business risk on the optimal debt level depends upon the relative magnitudes of the resultant marginal changes in the values of these two options results of empirical tests offer support for the predicted u shaped relationship

house prices home equity based borrowing and the u s household leverage crisis us household leverage sharply increased in the years preceding the 2007 eco nomic recession the top panel of figure 1 shows the steady rise in household debt since 1975 which accelerated beginning in 2002 in just five years the household sector doubled its debt balance in comparison the contemporaneous increase in corporate debt was modest the middle panel shows that the increase in household debt from 2002 to 2007 translated into a striking rise in household leverage as mea sured by the debt to income ratio during the same time period corporate leverage declined the dramatic absolute and relative rise in us household leverage from 2002 to 2007 is unprecedented compared to the last 25 years one reason for the rapid expansion in household leverage during this period is that mortgage credit became more easily available to new home buyers mian and sufi 2009 strong house price appreciation from 2002 to 2006 however which may have been fueled by the availability of mortgage credit to a riskier set of new home buyers could also have had an important feedback effect on household lever age through existing homeowners given that 65 percent of us households already owned their primary residence before the acceleration in house prices the feedback from house prices to borrowing may be an important source of the rapid rise in household leverage that preceded the economic downturn our central goals in this study are to estimate how homeowner borrowing responded to the increase in house prices and to identify which homeowners responded most aggressively we examine this home equity based borrowing channel using a dataset consisting of anonymous individual credit files of a national consumer credit bureau agency we follow a random sample of over 74 000 us homeowners who owned their homes as of 1997 at an annual frequency from the end of 1997 until the end of 2008 the bottom panel of figure 1 plots the growth in debt of 1997 homeowners over time and shows that existing homeowners borrow significantly more debt as their house prices appreciate from 2002 to 2006 while the aggregate trend is suggestive

default and punishment in general equilibrium we extend the standard model of general equilibrium with incomplete markets to allow for default and punishment by thinking of assets as pools the equilibrating variables include expected delivery rates along with the usual prices of assets and commodities by reinterpreting the variables our model encompasses a broad range of adverse selection and signalling phenomena in a perfectly competitive general equilibrium framework perfect competition eliminates the need for lenders to compute how the size of their loan or the price they quote might affect default rates it also makes for a simple equilibrium refinement which we propose in order to rule out irrational pessimism about deliveries of untraded assets we show that refined equilibrium always exists in our model and that default in conjunction with refinement opens the door to a theory of endogenous assets the market chooses the promises default penalties and quantity constraints of actively traded assets

managing credit bubbles we study a dynamic economy where credit is limited by insu cient collateral and as a result investment and output are too low in this environment changes in investor sentiment or market expectations can give rise to credit bubbles that is expansions in credit that are backed not by expectations of future pro ts i e fundamental collateral but instead by expectations of future credit i e bubbly collateral credit bubbles raise the availability of credit for entrepreneurs this

belief disagreements and collateral constraints belief disagreements have been suggested as a major contributing factor to the recent subprime mortgage crisis this paper theoretically evaluates this hypothesis i assume that optimists have limited wealth and take on leverage so as to take positions in line with their beliefs to have a significant effect on asset prices they need to borrow from traders with pessimistic beliefs using loans collateralized by the asset itself since pessimists do not value the collateral as much as optimists do they are reluctant to lend which provides an endogenous constraint on optimists ability to borrow and to influence asset prices i demonstrate that the tightness of this constraint depends on the nature of belief disagreements optimism concerning the probability of downside states has no or little effect on asset prices because these types of optimism are disciplined by this constraint instead optimism concerning the relative probability of upside states could have significant effects on asset prices this asymmetric disciplining effect is robust to allowing for short selling because pessimists that borrow the asset face a similar endogenous constraint these results emphasize that what investors disagree about matters for asset prices to a greater extent than the level of disagreements when richer contracts are available relatively complex contracts that resemble some of the recent financial innovations in the mortgage market endogenously emerge to facilitate betting

financial innovation the discovery of risk and the u s credit crisis abstract financial innovation and overconfidence about the risk of new financial products were key factors behind the 2008 u s credit crisis we show that a model with a collateral constraint in which learning about the risk of a new financial environment interacts with fisherian amplification produces a boom bust cycle in debt asset prices and consumption early realizations of a high borrowing ability regime turn agents optimistic about the persistence probability of this regime conversely the first realization of a low borrowing ability regime turns agents unduly pessimistic the model predicts large increases in household debt land prices and excess returns during 1998 2006 followed by a collapse

leverage cycles and the anxious economy ing opportunities for emerging economies their access to international markets has turned out to be very volatile with frequent periods of market closures even worse as we will show emerging economies with sound fundamentals are the ones that issue less debt during these closures the goal of this paper is to present a theory of asset pricing that will shed light on the problems of emerging assets like emerging markets that are not yet mature enough to be attractive to the general public their marginal buyers are liquidity constrained investors with small wealth relative to the whole economy who are also marginal buyers of other risky assets we will use our theory to argue that the periodic problems faced by emerging asset classes are sometimes symptoms of what we call a global anxious economy rather than of their own fundamental weaknesses

asset pledgeability and endogenously leveraged bubbles abstract we develop a simple model of defaultable debt and rational bubbles in the price of an asset which can be pledged as collateral in a competitive credit pool when the asset pledgeability is low the down payment is high and bubble investment is unleveraged as in a standard rational bubble model when the pledgeability is high the down payment is low making it easier for leveraged borrowers to invest in the bubbly asset as loans are packaged together into a competitive pool the pricing of individual default risk may facilitate risk taking in equilibrium credit constrained borrowers may optimally choose a risky leveraged investment strategy borrow to invest in the bubbly asset and default if the bubble bursts the model predicts joint boom bust cycles in asset prices and securitized credit

inequality leverage and crises the paper studies how high leverage and crises can arise as a result of changes in the income distribution empirically the periods 1920 1929 and 1983 2007 both exhibited a large increase in the income share of the rich a large increase in leverage for the remainder and an eventual financial and real crisis the paper presents a theoretical model where these features arise endogenously as a result of a shift in bargaining powers over incomes a financial crisis can reduce leverage if it is very large and not accompanied by a real contraction but restoration of the lower income group s bargaining power is more effective

bubbles and capital flow volatility causes and risk management emerging market economies are fertile ground for the development of real estate and other financial bubbles despite these economies significant growth potential their corporate and government sectors do not generate the financial instruments to provide residents with adequate stores of value capital often flows out of these economies seeking these stores of value in the developed world bubbles are beneficial because they provide domestic stores of value and thereby reduce capital outflows while increasing investment but they come at a cost as they expose the country to bubble crashes and capital flow reversals we show that domestic financial underdevelopment not only facilitates the emergence of bubbles but also leads agents to undervalue the aggregate risk embodied in financial bubbles in this context even rational bubbles can be welfare reducing we study a set of aggregate risk management policies to alleviate the bubble risk we show that prudential banking regulation sterilization of capital inflows and structural policies aimed at developing public debt markets and property rights all have a high payoff in this environment

economic growth with bubbles this paper presents a stylized model of economic growth with bubbles this model views asset price bubbles as a market generated device to moderate the effects of frictions in financial markets improving the allocation of investments and raising the capital stock and welfare the model illustrates various channels through which asset price bubbles affect the incentives for innovation and economic reforms and therefore the rate of economic growth the model also offers a new perspective on the effects of financial development on asset price bubbles and economic growth

recourse and residential mortgage default evidence from us states we quantify the effect of recourse on default and find that recourse affects default by lowering the borrower s sensitivity to negative equity at the mean value of the default option for defaulted loans borrowers are 30 more likely to default in non recourse states furthermore for homes appraised at 500 000 to 750 000 borrowers are twice as likely to default in non recourse states we also find that defaults are more likely to occur through a lender friendly procedure such as a deed in lieu in states that allow deficiency judgments we find no evidence that mortgage interest rates are lower in recourse states the author 2011 published by oxford university press on behalf of the society for financial studies all rights reserved for permissions please e mail journals permissions oup com oxford university press

the u s and irish credit crises their distinctive differences and common features although the 2007 2008 us credit crisis precipitated it the subsequent irish credit crisis is an identifiably separate one which might have occurred in the absence of the u s crash the distinctive differences between them are notable many of the apparent causal factors of the u s crisis are missing in the irish case and the same applies vice versa at a deeper level we identify four common features of the two credit crises capital bonanzas asset price bubbles regulatory imprudence and moral hazard the particular manifestations of these four deep common features are quite different in the two cases

target behavior and financing how conclusive is the evidence the notion that firms have a debt ratio target that is a primary determinant of financing behavior is influential in finance yet how definitive is the evidence we address this issue by generating samples where financing is unrelated to a firm s current debt ratio or a target we find that much of the available evidence in favor of target behavior based on leverage ratio changes can be reproduced for these samples taken together our findings suggest that a number of existing tests of target behavior have no power to reject alternatives

testing theories of capital structure and estimating the speed of adjustment this paper examines time series patterns of external financing decisions and shows that publicly traded u s firms fund a much larger proportion of their financing deficit with external equity when the cost of equity capital is low the historical values of the cost of equity capital have long lasting effects on firms capital structures through their influence on firms historical financing decisions we also introduce a new econometric technique to deal with biases in estimates of the speed of adjustment toward target leverage we find that firms adjust toward target leverage at a moderate speed with a half life of 3 7 years for book leverage even after controlling for the traditional determinants of capital structure and firm fixed effects

confidence and the real value of money in an overlapping generations economy we demonstrate that stochastic bubbles which have a constant exogenous probability of collapsing may exist in general equilibrium on an intrinsically useless and unbacked asset money this may happen provided that the probability q that the bubble will persist next period is large enough and exceeds a threshold level q which we call the minimum rate of confidence this condition is always violated when the economy without bubble is dynamically efficient it is more likely to be satisfied in dynamically inefficient economies the larger the size of the inefficiency as measured by the excess of the growth rate over the no bubble interest rate we study both exchange and production economies

leverage and default in binomial economies a complete characterization our paper provides a complete characterization of leverage and default in binomial economies with financial assets serving as collateral our binomial no default theorem states that any equilibrium is equivalent in real allocations and prices to another equilibrium in which there is no default thus actual default is irrelevant though the potential for default drives the equilibrium and limits borrowing this result is valid with arbitrary preferences and endowments contingent or noncontingent promises many assets and consumption goods production and multiple periods we also show that only no default equilibria would be selected if there were the slightest cost of using collateral or handling default our binomial leverage theorem shows that equilibrium loan to value ltv for noncontingent debt contracts is the ratio of the worst case return of the asset to the riskless gross rate of interest in binomial economies leverage is determined by down risk and not by volatility

competitive pooling rothschild stiglitz reconsidered we build a model of competitive pooling which incorporates adverse selection and signaling into general equilibrium pools are characterized by their quantity limits on contributions households signal their reliability by choosing which pool to join in equilibrium pools with lower quantity limits sell for a higher price even though each household s deliveries are the same at all pools the rothschild stiglitz model of insurance is included as a special case we show that by recasting their hybrid oligopolistic competitive story in our perfectly competitive framework their separating equilibrium always exists even when they say it does not and is unique

mechanical mean reversion of leverage ratios abstract the leverage ratio of an average firm reverts to mean mechanically regardless of whether target leverage exists this cautions against studies that use the ability of the leverage ratio or deviation from target leverage to predict future leverage changes to draw inference on capital structure theories

asset bubbles endogenous growth and financial frictions this paper analyzes the effects of bubbles in an infinitely lived agent model of endogenous growth with financial frictions and heterogeneous agents we provide a complete characterization on the relationship between financial frictions and the existence of bubbles our model predicts that if the degree of pledgeability is sufficiently high or sufficiently low bubbles can not exist they can only arise at an intermediate degree this suggests that improving the financial market condition might enhance the possibility of bubbles we also examine whether bubbles are growth enhancing or growth impairing in the long run we show that when the degree of pledgeability is relatively low bubbles boost long run growth on the other hand when it is relatively high bubbles lower long run growth moreover we examine the effects of the burst of bubbles and show that the effects much depend on the degree of the pldgeability i e the quality of financial system

the risk free rate in heterogeneous agent incomplete insurance economies abstract why has the average real risk free interest rate been less than one percent the question is motivated by the failure of a class of calibrated representative agent economies to explain the average return to equity and risk free debt i construct an economy where agents experience uninsurable idiosyncratic endowment shocks and smooth consumption by holding a risk free asset i calibrate the economy and characterize equilibria computationally with a borrowing constraint of one year s income the resulting risk free rate is more than one percent below the rate in the comparable representative agent economy

testing static tradeoff against pecking order models of capital structure a critical comment abstract in a recent paper shyam sunder and myers 1999 introduce a new test of the pecking order model this comment shows that their elegantly simple test generates misleading inferences when evaluating plausible patterns of external financing our results coupled with the power problem with the static tradeoff model documented by shyam sunder and myers indicate that their empirical evidence can evaluate neither the pecking order nor static tradeoff models alternative tests are needed that can identify the determinants of capital structure and can discriminate among competing hypotheses