This dissertation studies topics in international macroeconomics. In the first chapter, I develop a heterogeneous agent model of a small open economy and studies how households differ in their responses to aggregate productivity and interest rate shocks. Poor households display stronger consumption responses to an aggregate productivity shock because they are more likely to be constrained in liquid assets. In contrast, rich households display stronger consumption responses to an interest rate shock because they are more likely to be unconstrained in liquid assets. When the economy experiences a sudden stop, defined as transitory contractionary shocks to productivity and the interest rate, the interest rate effect neutralizes the productivity effect. As a consequence, the sudden stop generates consumption-income elasticities that display little variation along the income distribution, similar to a permanent shock. My finding captures the observed behavior of households in the Mexican Peso Crisis of 1994.
In the second chapter, I study a small open economy subject to a borrowing constraint which experiences stochastic volatility in its output endowment. I find that volatility shocks induce substantial changes in borrowing by households, in excess of the precautionary savings response. Household responses to volatility shocks increases the standard deviation of borrowing, but not the standard deviation of consumption, suggesting small welfare costs. Stochastic volatility increases the frequency of financial crises in a decentralized economy that overborrowsdue to a pecuniary externality, but not a socially optimal economy.
In the third chapter, I introduce income heterogeneity into a small open economy model with an occasionally binding collateral constraint. Income heterogeneity generates poor households that borrow up to the constraint to smooth over their income shock. This differs from representative agent models that require a depressed aggregate state for the representative household to interact with the constraint. As a consequence, the model displays a higher average marginal propensity to consume which generates a higher volatility of aggregate consumption. The model with income heterogeneity fails to generate sudden stops. This occurs as the income shock generates rich households that are able to consumption smooth throughout contractions.
In the fourth chapter, I trace the path between a benchmark representative agent model and a benchmark heterogeneous agent model. Heterogeneous agent models typically introduce idiosyncratic income risk, a financial friction in the form of a borrowing or non-negativity constraint, and recalibrate the impatience of households. This paper studies the effect of each term. With the minimal financial friction that households cannot starve, complete markets fail, but income risk has no significant effect on the aggregate response of consumption to an endowment or interest rate shock relative to a representative agent benchmark. Heterogeneity and significant financial frictions generate empirically realistic marginal propensities to consume, but fail to alter the aggregate consumption response. Decreasing the impatience of households is necessary to significantly alter aggregate responses to endowment and interest rate shocks.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:columbia.edu/oai:academiccommons.columbia.edu:10.7916/et6m-a009 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Vaughn, Mitchell |
| Source Sets | Columbia University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Theses |
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