La crise économique survenue à l’échelle mondiale en 2008 et dont les effets se font encore ressentir près d’une décennie plus tard, a mis en lumière le rôle déterminant des facteurs financiers dans les cycles économiques ainsi que dans la conduite de politiques de stabilisation conjoncturelle, au premier rang desquelles se trouve la politique monétaire. De ce point, les crises constituent une expérience privilégiée pour revoir les propriétés empiriques des modèles macroéconomiques et les aspects plus normatifs des politiques économiques. Par ailleurs, les développements observés au sein de la zone euro illustrent d’autant mieux les défis auxquels sont confrontés une union monétaire lorsque les risques financiers se mêlent aux risques de soutenabilités des dettes souveraines.La Thèse s’attachera à évaluer la conduite des politiques économiques en présence de frictions financières sous une perspective à la fois empirique, utilisant des modèles de séries temporelles multivariés, et structurelle, sur la base de modèles aux fondements théoriques plus explicites. La thèse présentera ainsi des contributions originales dans divers domaines de la macroéconomie financière.Premièrement, une série de travaux empiriques entendent démontrer la prééminence de chocs financiers dans les performances économiques européennes durant la crise. En particulier, deux articles utilisent les modèles BVAR pour identifier des chocs d’offre de crédit et quantifier leur contribution aux différentes récessions survenues dans la zone euro au cours des dix dernières années.En outre, si les chocs financiers peuvent expliquer certains faits stylisés de la crise, leur nature, leurs mécanismes de transmission et leur dimension asymétrique au sein des pays de la zone euro peuvent faire l’objet d’une analyse plus structurelle. Plusieurs travaux exposent des modèles DSGE incorporant un ensemble assez détaillé de frictions financières portant à la fois sur l’offre et la demande de crédit. Ces modèles apportent de nouvelles perspectives sur la propagation macroéconomique des chocs financiers en isolant en particulier le rôle des bilans bancaires et des schémas d’amplification entre la sphère réelle et la sphère financière.Un troisième axe de recherche se focalise sur l’évaluation des politiques monétaires. Dans le cadre de modèles DSGE présentant des propriétés empiriques satisfaisantes (et pour la plupart estimés sur des données macroéconomiques européennes), plusieurs articles analysent les caractéristiques de plusieurs concepts de politiques monétaires optimales. Ces travaux explorent la stabilisation optimale de chocs réels, nominaux ou financiers, dans des conditions d’économie ouverte ou fermée.Par la suite, la thèse s’attachera à examiner la conduite de la politique monétaire en situation de crise dans laquelle des chocs financiers ont poussé les taux d’intérêts sans risques à leur limite basse. Dans ces conditions, plusieurs articles étudient le rôle des politiques non-conventionnelles comme les achats de titres par la banque centrale ou encore, l’octroi de liquidité à long terme. Une attention toute particulière est portée sur canal du crédit de ces différentes mesures. Par ailleurs, la conduite optimale d’achat d’actifs est analysée.Enfin, les aspects normatifs de la conduite de la politique monétaire en présence de frictions financières amènent naturellement à considérer les interactions stratégiques avec d'autres politiques économiques et financières, et notamment les politiques macroprudentielles. Sur la base de modèles DSGE incluant une description pertinente du secteur bancaire, la transmission de politiques macroprudentielles peut être quantifiée ainsi que ses implications sur la politique monétaire. Les bénéfices d’une articulation efficace des politiques monétaires et macroprudentielles se trouvent d’ailleurs renforcer au sein une union monétaire, et peuvent être illustrés dans le cadre d’un modèle DSGE à deux pays. / The Thesis aims at evaluating monetary policy in presence of financial frictions both from an empirical and structural perspective. Along those lines, multi-variate time-series framework as well as model with more explicit theoretical foundations will be deployed. The Thesis presents original contributions in various fields of monetary and financial macroeconomics.The main motivation for the applied research presented in this Thesis are twofold. It responded both to the need for deeper research on macro-financial linkages and to the growing interest of policy institutions for the model-based policy advise. First, the Great recession and in particular, the typology of crisis episodes in Europe over the last decade, unveiled new challenges for monetary policy conduct, notably related to the prevalence of financial factors in cyclical fluctuations, the design of non-standard measures and the interactions with financial service policies. The second motivation has to do with the growing role for structural models in the preparation of monetary policy within central banks. Over the last decades, academic research and central bank practices have mutually benefited from strong synergies, whereby quantitative methods and theoretical advances have had a lasting influence on main preparation avenues for monetary policy making.In Chapter 1, a set of empirical studies intend to demonstrate the prevalence of financial shocks underlying the euro area macroeconomic performance during the Great recession. In particular, BVAR models can identify credit supply shocks and quantify their contribution to the various recessionary episodes over the last decade.Thereafter, Chapter 2 explores more structurally the transmission mechanism of financial shocks together with their heterogeneity across the euro area through the lens of DSGE models featuring a relevant set of demand-side as well as supply-side credit frictions.Against this background, the Thesis examine more normative aspects of monetary policy conduct starting with derivation of optimal monetary policy in selected DSGE models, which is the focus of Chapter 3. The Ramsey approach to optimal monetary provides a clear benchmark for formulating normative prescriptions. We analyse the main properties of the Ramsey allocation within a set of quantitative DSGE models, thereby bring new insight on various closed economy and open economy policy challenges.At times of crisis, as financial-driven recessions bring the monetary policy interest rates to their effective lower bound, central bank deployed a set of non-standard measures in order to engineer the intended policy accommodation. Chapter 4 presents several studies which extend DSGE models to analyse the role of non-standard monetary policy measures like asset purchase programmes or long-term liquidity operations. The credit channel of those measures will be the focus of the analysis. From a more normative standpoint, the optimal central bank asset purchase strategy will be derived.Finally, in Chapter 5, the normative assessment of monetary policy conduct in presence of financial frictions calls for considering strategic interactions with other policies, and notably macroprudential policy. Such interactions are all the more relevant when analysed in a monetary union context through multi-country DSGE models.

Esta tese é composta por três ensaios sobre a estimação bayesiana de modelos DSGE com fricções financeiras para o Brasil. O primeiro ensaio tem o objetivo de analisar como a incorporação de intermediários financeiros num modelo DSGE influenciam na análise do ciclo econômico, bem como uma política de crédito pode ser utilizada para mitigar os choques no mercado de crédito sobre a atividade. O governo brasileiro expandiu o crédito na economia através das instituições financeiras públicas tendo como custo o aumento da dívida pública. Para isso, foi estimado um modelo inspirado em Gertler e Karadi (2011) para avaliar o comportamento da economia brasileira sob a influência de uma política de crédito. Política de crédito mostrou-se efetiva para mitigar os efeitos recessivos de uma crise financeira que atinja a cotação dos ativos privados ou o patrimônio das instituições financeiras. Contudo, a política monetária tradicional se mostrou mais eficiente para a estabilização da inflação em momentos de normalidade. O segundo ensaio consiste na estimação de um modelo DSGE-VAR para a economia brasileira. A parte DSGE consiste em uma economia pequena, aberta e com fricções financeiras na linha de Gertler, Gilchrist e Natalucci (2007). A estimação do modelo indicou que flexibilização do espaço paramétrico possibilitado pelo modelo DSGE-VAR proporcionou ganhos em relação ao ajuste aos dados em relação a modelos alternativos. O exercício também obteve indicações de que os choques externos apresentam impactos significativos no patrimônio e no endividamento das firmas domésticas. Esse resultado fortalece a evidência de que um canal importante de transmissão dos movimentos da economia mundial para a o Brasil ocorre através das firmas. Por fim, no terceiro ensaio tem como foco a transmissão dos choques no spread de crédito bancário para as demais variáveis da economia e suas implicações para a condução da política monetária no brasil. Para isso, foi estimado um modelo DSGE com fricções financeiras para a economia brasileira. O modelo é baseado em Cúrdia e Woodford (2010), que propuseram uma extensão do modelo de Woodford (2003) para incorporar a existência de um diferencial entre a taxa de juros disponíveis aos poupadores e tomadores de empréstimos, que pode variar por razões tanto endógenas quanto exógenos. Nessa economia, a política monetária pode responder não somente às variações na taxa de inflação e hiato do produto através de uma regra simples, como também por meio de uma regra ajustada pelo spread de crédito da economia. Os resultados mostram que a inclusão do spread de crédito no modelo Novo Keynesiano não altera significativamente as conclusões dos modelos DSGE em respostas a perturbações exógenas tradicionais, como choques na taxa de juros, na produtividade da economia e no dispêndio público. Porém, nos eventos que ocasionam a deterioração da intermediação financeira, por meio de choques exógenos sobre o spread de crédito, o impacto sobre o ciclo econômico foi significativo e a adoção de uma regra de política monetária ajustada pelo spread pode conseguir estabilizar a economia mais rapidamente do que uma regra tradicional. / The present thesis is a collection of three essays on Bayesian estimation of DSGE models with financial frictions in the Brazilian economy. The first essay intends to investigate how the incorporation of financial intermediaries in a DSGE model influences the analysis of the economic cycle, as well as how the credit policy can be employed to mitigate the effects of shocks in the credit market on the economic activity. The Brazilian government expanded the credit in the economy through public financial institutions, which resulted in an increase of public debt. it estimated a model inspired by Gertler and Karadi (2011) to evaluate the performance of the Brazilian economy under the influence of a credit policy. Credit policy was effective to mitigate the recessionary effects of a financial crisis that affects the valuation of private assets and the net worth of financial institutions. However, the traditional monetary policy was more efficient for the stabilization of inflation in times of normality. The second essay consist of a DSGE-VAR model for the Brazilian economy. The DSGE model was estimated for a small, open economy with financial frictions, in line with Gertler, Gilchrist and Natalucci (2007). The results indicates that the estimation of DSGE-VAR provides an advantage for the data fitting in comparison to alternative models. In addition, the results indicate that external shocks have significant impacts in the equity and debt of domestic firms. This result strengthens (supports) the evidence that an important channel of transmission of the movements of the world economy for the Brazil takes place through productive sector. The third essay analyze the transmission of shocks in the banking credit spread for the other variables of the economy and its implications for the conduct of monetary policy in Brazil. We do so by estimating a DSGE model with financial frictions for the Brazilian economy. The model is based on Cúrdia and Woodford (2010), who proposed an extension of the model Woodford (2003) to incorporate the existence of a differential between the interest rates available to savers and borrowers, which can vary by both endogenous and exogenous reasons. In this model, monetary policy can respond not only to changes in the inflation rate and output gap through a simple rule, but also through a rule set by the credit spread of the economy. The results show that the inclusion of credit spread in the New Keynesian model does not significantly changes the conclusions of DSGE models in traditional responses to exogenous shocks, such as shocks in the interest rate, in the productivity of the economy and in public spending. However, in the events that cause the deterioration of financial intermediation through exogenous shocks on the credit spread, the impact on the business cycle was significant and the adoption of a monetary policy rule set by the spread can achieve a faster stabilization of the economy than a traditional rule.

Esta tese é composta por três ensaios sobre a estimação bayesiana de modelos DSGE com fricções financeiras para o Brasil. O primeiro ensaio tem o objetivo de analisar como a incorporação de intermediários financeiros num modelo DSGE influenciam na análise do ciclo econômico, bem como uma política de crédito pode ser utilizada para mitigar os choques no mercado de crédito sobre a atividade. O governo brasileiro expandiu o crédito na economia através das instituições financeiras públicas tendo como custo o aumento da dívida pública. Para isso, foi estimado um modelo inspirado em Gertler e Karadi (2011) para avaliar o comportamento da economia brasileira sob a influência de uma política de crédito. Política de crédito mostrou-se efetiva para mitigar os efeitos recessivos de uma crise financeira que atinja a cotação dos ativos privados ou o patrimônio das instituições financeiras. Contudo, a política monetária tradicional se mostrou mais eficiente para a estabilização da inflação em momentos de normalidade. O segundo ensaio consiste na estimação de um modelo DSGE-VAR para a economia brasileira. A parte DSGE consiste em uma economia pequena, aberta e com fricções financeiras na linha de Gertler, Gilchrist e Natalucci (2007). A estimação do modelo indicou que flexibilização do espaço paramétrico possibilitado pelo modelo DSGE-VAR proporcionou ganhos em relação ao ajuste aos dados em relação a modelos alternativos. O exercício também obteve indicações de que os choques externos apresentam impactos significativos no patrimônio e no endividamento das firmas domésticas. Esse resultado fortalece a evidência de que um canal importante de transmissão dos movimentos da economia mundial para a o Brasil ocorre através das firmas. Por fim, no terceiro ensaio tem como foco a transmissão dos choques no spread de crédito bancário para as demais variáveis da economia e suas implicações para a condução da política monetária no brasil. Para isso, foi estimado um modelo DSGE com fricções financeiras para a economia brasileira. O modelo é baseado em Cúrdia e Woodford (2010), que propuseram uma extensão do modelo de Woodford (2003) para incorporar a existência de um diferencial entre a taxa de juros disponíveis aos poupadores e tomadores de empréstimos, que pode variar por razões tanto endógenas quanto exógenos. Nessa economia, a política monetária pode responder não somente às variações na taxa de inflação e hiato do produto através de uma regra simples, como também por meio de uma regra ajustada pelo spread de crédito da economia. Os resultados mostram que a inclusão do spread de crédito no modelo Novo Keynesiano não altera significativamente as conclusões dos modelos DSGE em respostas a perturbações exógenas tradicionais, como choques na taxa de juros, na produtividade da economia e no dispêndio público. Porém, nos eventos que ocasionam a deterioração da intermediação financeira, por meio de choques exógenos sobre o spread de crédito, o impacto sobre o ciclo econômico foi significativo e a adoção de uma regra de política monetária ajustada pelo spread pode conseguir estabilizar a economia mais rapidamente do que uma regra tradicional. / The present thesis is a collection of three essays on Bayesian estimation of DSGE models with financial frictions in the Brazilian economy. The first essay intends to investigate how the incorporation of financial intermediaries in a DSGE model influences the analysis of the economic cycle, as well as how the credit policy can be employed to mitigate the effects of shocks in the credit market on the economic activity. The Brazilian government expanded the credit in the economy through public financial institutions, which resulted in an increase of public debt. it estimated a model inspired by Gertler and Karadi (2011) to evaluate the performance of the Brazilian economy under the influence of a credit policy. Credit policy was effective to mitigate the recessionary effects of a financial crisis that affects the valuation of private assets and the net worth of financial institutions. However, the traditional monetary policy was more efficient for the stabilization of inflation in times of normality. The second essay consist of a DSGE-VAR model for the Brazilian economy. The DSGE model was estimated for a small, open economy with financial frictions, in line with Gertler, Gilchrist and Natalucci (2007). The results indicates that the estimation of DSGE-VAR provides an advantage for the data fitting in comparison to alternative models. In addition, the results indicate that external shocks have significant impacts in the equity and debt of domestic firms. This result strengthens (supports) the evidence that an important channel of transmission of the movements of the world economy for the Brazil takes place through productive sector. The third essay analyze the transmission of shocks in the banking credit spread for the other variables of the economy and its implications for the conduct of monetary policy in Brazil. We do so by estimating a DSGE model with financial frictions for the Brazilian economy. The model is based on Cúrdia and Woodford (2010), who proposed an extension of the model Woodford (2003) to incorporate the existence of a differential between the interest rates available to savers and borrowers, which can vary by both endogenous and exogenous reasons. In this model, monetary policy can respond not only to changes in the inflation rate and output gap through a simple rule, but also through a rule set by the credit spread of the economy. The results show that the inclusion of credit spread in the New Keynesian model does not significantly changes the conclusions of DSGE models in traditional responses to exogenous shocks, such as shocks in the interest rate, in the productivity of the economy and in public spending. However, in the events that cause the deterioration of financial intermediation through exogenous shocks on the credit spread, the impact on the business cycle was significant and the adoption of a monetary policy rule set by the spread can achieve a faster stabilization of the economy than a traditional rule.

In recent years the New Keynesian framework has become widely used to identify the relationship between monetary policy, inflation, the business cycle and welfare. Most commonly in these models inertia in prices are introduced only through the aggregate supply side which generates a short run non-neutrality of money. This thesis begins with an investigation into the impact of sticky prices on the macroeconomic equilibrium through aggregate demand. We show that in models of price stickiness among differentiated goods aggregate consumption deviates from the conventional Euler equation due to relative price distortions. This has some non-negligible implications: there are additional inflation effects, which enter through aggregate demand, that lower the response of the marginal cost and dampen responses of inflation and output; products' price elasticity of demand affects equilibrium output and inflation dynamics independently of supply factors; monetary policy responses are smoother than in the conventional new Keynesian models, particularly the more competitive are the products markets. In chapter 2 we continue with an investigation into the impact that the aforementioned channel has on welfare and monetary policy under various regimes. Specifically, we compare our results with the benchmark New Keynesian model with a cost channel for alternative levels of competition in the goods market. When the central bank is assumed to follow a Taylor rule we find, contrary to the standard New Keynesian literature, that welfare losses ultimately fall as the goods market becomes more competitive. Furthermore, there are additional adverse implications for welfare coming through an exaggerated stabilisation bias associated with discretionary policy in our model version. A move to optimal commitment implies significant additional gains compared to the standard literature by; eliminating this amplified stabilisation bias and; reducing further the fall in output gap and inflation fluctuations at the time of shock. The final part of this thesis develops a Generalised Taylor economy to include a financial market. This finance sector is characterised by savings contracts to households and loan contracts to firms, both of which are differentiated by the duration for which their interest rate remains fixed. Additionally, a time varying external finance premium on loan rates is introduced through an endogenous probability of firm default. Using break-even conditions we show that the fixed markup on loan rates is dependent on, the expected default risk over the lifetime of the contract, and, spillovers from the unexpected losses of current "locked in" financial contracts that must be accounted for in the zero profit condition of the commercial bank. Our results indicate that inertia in loan and savings rates dampens the responses of monetary policy and the business cycle whilst generating a procylical loan rate spread. In contrast, risk of default amplifies the business cycle and delivers a countercyclical loan rate spread. The overall impact of these two channels on the direction and magnitude of loan rate spreads, spillovers to new contracts and the dynamics of the business cycle, are shown depend on the type of shock hitting the economy.

Thesis advisor: Ryan A. Chahrour / The dissertation studies the primary sources of business-cycle fluctuations and their interaction with uncertainty and financial frictions. In my work, I examine the degree to which changes in uncertainty and financial conditions can be independent drivers of economic fluctuations; I study the sources of boom-bust cycles and whether they are linkedto credit market sentiments; and I ask how financial frictions affect economic fluctuations in terms of prices and quantities. In "Financial and Uncertainty Shocks", I separately identify financial and uncertainty shocks using a novel SVAR procedure and discuss their distinct monetary policy implications. The procedure relies on the qualitatively different responses of corporate cash holdings: after a financial shock, firms draw down their cash reserves as they lose access to external finance, while uncertainty shocks drive up cash holdings for precautionary reasons. Although both financial and uncertainty shocks are contractionary, my results show that the former are inflationary while the latter generate deflation. I rationalize this pattern in a New-Keynesian model: after a financial shock, firms increase prices to raise current liquidity; after an uncertainty shock, firms cut prices in response to falling demand. These distinct channels have stark monetary policy implications: conditional on uncertainty shocks the divine coincidence applies, while in case of financial shocks the central bank can stabilize inflation only at the cost of more unstable output fluctuations. In "What are the Sources of Boom-Bust Cycles?", joint with Vito Cormun, we provide a synthesis of two major views on economic fluctuations. One view maintains that expansions and recessions arise from the interchange of positive and negative persistent exogenous shocks to fundamentals. This is the conventional view that gave rise to the profusion of shocks used in modern dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models. In contrast, a second view, which we call the endogenous cycles view, holds that business cycle fluctuations are due to forces that are internal to the economy and that endogenously favor recurrent periods of boom followed by a bust. In this environment, cycles can occur after small perturbations of the long run equilibrium. We find empirical evidence pointing at the coexistence of both views. In particular, we find that the cyclical behaviour of economic aggregates is due in part to strong internal mechanisms that generate boom-bust phenomena in response to small changes in expectations, and in part to the interchange of positive and negative persistent fundamental shocks. Motivated by our findings, we build a theory that unifies the dominant paradigm with the endogenous cycles approach. Our theory suggests that recessions and expansions are intimately related phenomena, and that understanding the nature of an expansion, whether it is driven by fundamentals or by beliefs, is a first order issue for policy makers whose mandate is to limit the occurrance of inefficient economic fluctuations. In "COVID-19 and Credit Constraints'', joint with Pierluigi Balduzzi, Emanuele Brancati, and Fabio Schiantarelli, we investigate the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the role played by credit constraints in the transmission mechanism, using a novel survey of expectations and plans of Italian firms, taken just before and after the outbreak. Most firms revise downward their expectations for sales, orders, employment, and investment, while prices are expected to increase at a faster rate, with geographical and sectoral heterogeneity in the size of the effects. Credit constraints amplify the effects on factor demand and sales of the COVID-19 generated shocks. Credit-constrained firms also expect to charge higher prices, relative to unconstrained firms. The search for and availability of liquidity is a key determinant of firms' plans. Finally, both supply and demand shocks play a role in shaping firms' expectations and plans, with supply shocks being slightly more important in the aggregate. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(経済学) / 甲第18036号 / 経博第489号 / 新制||経||268(附属図書館) / 30894 / 京都大学大学院経済学研究科経済学専攻 / (主査)教授 柴田 章久, 教授 中嶋 智之, 准教授 敦賀 貴之 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Economics / Kyoto University / DFAM

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Yes / The view that corporations have a wider focus than just maximizing shareholder value has received considerable attention from practitioners, managers, and academics alike. We investigate the Q theory of corporate investment with financial frictions when management maximizes stakeholder value instead of shareholder value. Different objective functions are investigated. We characterize the optimal investment and financial policy of the firm. The results show that stakeholder firms invest more than shareholder firms, i.e., over-investing, and an increase of stakeholder shares increases investment, except when equity issuing firms face severe informational asymmetries or severe cost of external equity. We also discuss different approaches to model investment of stakeholder firms and their implications for empirical analysis.

Thesis advisor: Susanto Basu / Thesis advisor: Peter Ireland / This dissertation consists of three independent chapters analyzing the role that information and credit frictions play in goods and financial markets. Within these chapters, I develop dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models to study the implications of these frictions on the macroeconomy, both at the national and international level. In the first chapter, I provide a novel explanation for the observed large and persistent fluctuations in real exchange rates using a model with noisy, dispersed information among price-setting firms. Chapter two studies how entrepreneurs' attitudes towards risk affect business cycles in a framework with agency frictions between borrowers and lenders. Finally, chapter three introduces a liquidity channel in a business cycle model with agency frictions to rationalize the highly volatile behavior of default recovery rates observed in the data. Real exchange rates have been extremely volatile and persistent since the end of the Bretton Woods system. For many developed economies, real exchange rates are as volatile as nominal exchange rates, and their fluctuations exhibit a half-life in the range of three to five years. Traditional sticky-price models struggle to jointly account for these features under plausible nominal rigidities (Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan, 2002). Is it possible to reconcile, in a single framework, the enormous short-term volatility of the real exchange rate with its extremely long half-life? The first chapter of this dissertation addresses this question within a framework in which information is noisy and heterogeneous among price-setting firms. In this context, the continuing uncertainty that firms face about the state of the economy and about the beliefs of their competitors, slows down the price adjustment in response to nominal shocks, generating large and long-lived real exchange rate movements. I estimate the model using real output and output deflator data from the US and the Euro Area and show, as an out-of-sample test, that the model successfully explains the observed volatility and persistence of the Euro/Dollar real exchange rate. In a Bayesian model comparison, I show that the data strongly favor the dispersed information model relative to a sticky-price model à la Calvo. The model also accounts for the persistent effects of monetary shocks on the real exchange rate that I document using a structural vector autoregression. The second chapter, joint with Mikhail Dmitriev, studies how entrepreneurs' attitudes towards risk affect business cycles in a model with agency frictions. Entrepreneurs are inevitably exposed to non-diversified risk, which likely affects their willingness to borrow and to invest in risky projects. Nevertheless, the financial friction literature has paid little attention to how entrepreneurs' desire to take on this risk affects their investment choices in a general-equilibrium setting. Indeed, business cycle models with credit market frictions that feature idiosyncratic risk assume, for tractability, that entrepreneurs are risk neutral (Bernanke, Gertler, and Gilchrist, 1999, BGG). In this chapter, we generalize the BGG framework to the case of entrepreneurs with constant-relative-risk-aversion preferences. In doing so, we overcome the aggregation challenges of this setup and maintain an analytically tractable, log-linear framework. Our main result is that higher risk aversion stabilizes business cycle fluctuations in response to financial shocks, such as wealth redistribution or risk shocks, without significantly affecting the dynamic responses to technology and monetary shocks. Our findings suggest that, within this class of models, the ability of financial shocks to account for a large portion of short-run output fluctuations found in previous work (e.g., Christiano, Motto, and Rostagno (2014)) crucially hinges on borrowers' risk neutrality. The third chapter, joint with Mikhail Dmitriev, examines the implications of the cyclical properties of default recovery rates for aggregate fluctuations. We document that recovery rates after default in the United States are highly volatile and strongly pro-cyclical. These facts are hard to reconcile with the existing financial friction literature. Indeed, models with limited enforceability à la Kiyotaki and Moore (1997) do not feature defaults and recovery rates in equilibrium, while agency costs models following Bernanke, Gertler, and Gilchrist (1999) underestimate the volatility of recovery rates by one order of magnitude. In this chapter, we extend the standard agency costs model allowing liquidation costs for creditors to depend on the tightness of the market for physical capital. Creditors do not have expertise in selling entrepreneurial assets, but when buyers are plentiful, this disadvantage is minimal. Instead when sellers are abundant, the disadvantage of being an outsider is higher. Following a negative shock, entrepreneurs sell capital and liquidation costs for creditors increase, driving down recovery rates. With higher liquidation costs, creditors cut lending and cause entrepreneurs to sell even more capital. This liquidity channel works independently from standard balance sheet effects, and amplifies the impact of financial shocks on output by up to 50 percent. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.