Contracts, Relationships, and Real Activity

这个项目的目的是提供对资本、劳动力和其他生产性投入市场的新理解，基础是对构成市场的长期关系的因素进行清晰的核算。这项调查集中在两个关键方面。(1)关系的成功取决于它们克服契约缺陷的能力，例如有限责任、有限的流动性和有限的行动可验证性。(2)市场结果取决于将代理人聚集在一起形成关系的过程，以及关系在解决合同问题方面的成功。经济生产力、冲击的传播和政策干预的有效性，都与长期关系的形成、运行和破裂息息相关。第一部分包括一个新的信贷市场理论模型，在该模型中，流动性通过长期关系从贷款人输送到企业家手中，贷款人在短期内获得流动性的机会可能会受到限制。由于有限的责任和有限的流动性，关系容易出现低效破裂。总流动资金的流出会导致关系破裂，从而对金融结构造成持续损害。投资回报和中介结构之间的互补导致具有不同总流动性水平的多个稳态均衡，包括崩溃状态，它可能成为严重负面冲击后唯一的均衡结果。将模型扩展到考虑多个创业者和贷款人之间的关系，并对政策干预的动力进行了分析。第二部分阐述并检验了模型的实证意义。该模型预测，以银行存款或银行资本头寸为代表，一个州的银行可以获得更多可贷资金，这应该与该州的实际活动呈正相关。此外，资金在各银行间更大的横截面分散应该会减少实际活动。这项研究将使用银行资产负债表数据和国家层面的经济活动指标来检验这些影响，并评估流动性配置对于货币冲击传导的重要性。第三部分建立了一个随机动态货币均衡模型，该模型将信贷市场的理论模型与产生名义刚性的有限参与机制耦合起来。与以前的模型相比，扩展后的模型将在产出反应的持续性和货币冲击后价格反应的迟滞方面产生重大改善。

The aim of this project is to provide a new understanding of markets for capital, labor and other productive inputs, based on developing a clear accounting of the factors shaping long-term relationships that make up the markets. This inquiry focuses on two key dimensions. (1) The success of relationships depends on their ability to overcome contracting imperfections, such as limited liability, limited liquidity, and limited verifiability of actions. (2) Market outcomes are determined by the processes that bring agents together to form relationships, as well as the success of relationships in solving their contracting problems. Economic productivity, propagation of shocks, and the effectiveness of policy intervention are all tied to the formation, operation and breakdown of long-term relationships.The project consists of three main parts. The first part consists of a new theoretical model of credit markets in which liquidity is channeled from lenders to entrepreneurs through long-term relationships, and lenders may be constrained in their short-run access to liquidity. Relationships are subject to inefficient breakdown due to limited liability and limited liquidity. Outflows of aggregate liquidity induce persistent damage to financial structure by breaking up relationships. Complementarily between returns to investment and the structure of intermediation leads to multiple steady-state equilibria having different levels of aggregate liquidity, including a collapse state that may become the unique equilibrium outcome following a severe negative shock. The model is extended to consider relationships between multiple entrepreneurs and lenders, and the dynamics of policy intervention will be analyzedThe second part formulates and tests empirical implications of the model. The model predicts that greater availability of loanable funds to the banks in a state, as proxied by bank deposits or bank capital positions, should relate positively to real activity in the state. Further, greater cross-sectional dispersion of funds across banks should reduce real activity. The proposed research will test these implications using bank balance sheet data and state-level measures of economic activity as well as assessing the significance of liquidity allocation for the transmission of monetary shocks.The third part develops a stochastic dynamic monetary equilibrium model that couples the theoretical model of credit markets with the limited participation mechanism for producing nominal rigidity. The expanded model will yield important improvements in the amount of persistence of output responses, and the sluggishness of price responses, following monetary shocks, relative to previous models.