Financial crashes were followed by deep recessions in the Sudden Stops of emerging economies. An equilibrium business cycle model with a collateral constraint explains this phenomenon as a result of the amplification and asymmetry that the constraint induces in the responses of macro-aggregates to shocks. Leverage rises during expansions, and when it rises enough it triggers the constraint, causing a Fisherian deflation that reduces credit and the price and quantity of collateral assets. Output and factor allocations fall because access to working capital financing is also reduced. Precautionary saving makes Sudden Stops low probability events nested within normal cycles, as observed in the data.

This paper reports results for a class of dynamic, stochastic general equilibrium models with credit constraints that can account for some of the empirical regularities of the Sudden Stop phenomenon of recent emerging markets crises. In these models, credit constraints set in motion Irving Fisher's debt-deflation mechanism and they bind as an endogenous equilibrium outcome when agents are highly indebted. The quantitative predictions of these models yield three key lessons: (1) Sudden Stops can occur as an endogenous response to typical realizations of adverse shocks to fundamentals, in environments in which agents plan their actions taking credit constraints and expectations of Sudden Stops into account. (2) Credit constraints cause output declines during Sudden Stops when collateral constraints limit debt to a fraction of the market value of capital, when there are limits on access to working capital, or when debt-deflation lowers the value of the marginal product of factors of production. (3) The debt-deflation mechanism has significant quantitative effects in terms of the amplification, asymmetry and persistence of the responses of macroeconomic aggregates to standard shocks, and in the occurrence of Sudden Stops as infrequent events nested within regular business cycles. Precautionary saving rules out the largest Sudden Stops from the stochastic stationary state, but Sudden Stops remain a positive-probability event in the long run.

This paper analyzes a real-business-cycle model of a small open economy. The model is parameterized, calibrated, and simulated to explore its ability to rationalize the observed pattern of postwar Canadian business fluctuations. The results show that the model mimics many of the stylized facts using moderate adjustment costs and minimal variability and persistence in the technological disturbances. In particular, the model is consistent with the observed positive correlation between savings and investment, even though financial capital is perfectly mobile, and with countercyclical fluctuations in external trade.

This paper analyzes a real-business-cycle model of a small open economy. The model is parameterized, calibrated, and simulated to explore its ability to rationalize the observed pattern of postwar Canadian business fluctuations. The results show that the model mimics many of the stylized facts using moderate adjustment costs and minimal variability and persistence in the technological disturbances. In particular, the model is consistent with the observed positive correlation between savings and investment, even though financial capital is perfectly mobile, and with countercyclical fluctuations in external trade.

Petty Crime and Cruel Punishment: Lessons from the Mexican DebacleGuillermo A. Calvo; Enrique G. MendozaThe American Economic Review, Vol. 86, No. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the Hundredth andEighth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association San Francisco, CA, January 5-7,1996. (May, 1996), pp. 170-175.

Capital-Markets Crises and Economic Collapse in Emerging Markets: An Informational-Frictions Approach by Guillermo A. Calvo and Enrique G. Mendoza. Published in volume 90, issue 2, pages 59-64 of American Economic Review, May 2000

This paper studies tax reforms in a dynamic model of a global economy calibrated to current U.S. and European tax policies. World capital markets add consumption-smoothing and income-redistribution effects that alter closed-economy predictions. In the absence of taxes on foreign interest, welfare gains of eliminating U.S. income taxes are enlarged by up to 34 percent at the expense of European losses caused by transitional declines in consumption and leisure and a permanent capital outflow. In contrast, if foreign interest is taxed, the same tax reform reduces U.S. welfare 0.7 percent and increases European welfare 1.8 percent.

This paper studies tax reforms in a dynamic model of a global economy calibrated to current U.S. and European tax policies. World capital markets add consumption-smoothing and income-redistribution effects that alter closed-economy predictions. In the absence of taxes on foreign interest, welfare gains of eliminating U.S. income taxes are enlarged by up to 34 percent, at the expense of European losses caused by transitional declines in consumption and leisure, and a permanent capital outflow. In contrast, if foreign interest is taxed, the same tax reform reduces U.S. welfare 0.7 percent and increases European welfare 1.8 percent.

Why did Finland experience, in 1991–1993, the deepest recession observed in an industrialized country since the 1930s? Using a dynamic general equilibrium model with labor frictions, we argue that the collapse of the Soviet-Finnish trade was a major contributor to the contraction. Finland's experience mirrors that of the transition economies of Eastern Europe, which suffered similar deep recessions coupled with institutional changes. By focusing on the Finnish case, we isolate the effects of the Finnish-Soviet trade collapse and shed new light on the sources of recessions in transition economies.