SGER: Durable Goods, Borrowing Constraints and the Business Cycle

这项探索性研究的小额赠款支持对家庭借贷约束如何与商业周期中的总体活动相互作用进行定量研究。特别是，它探讨了对基本面（技术、财富分配或财政政策等）的冲击如何通过其对借贷限制的反馈而产生巨大和持续的波动。该项目还评估了信贷市场结构的外生变化对商业周期数量特性的影响。关键的新元素将是耐用品的出现。这些商品将发挥双重作用，既提供直接效用，又为拥有这些商品的家庭提供附带服务。这第二种作用将产生一种新的、强有力的从冲击到基本面的传导机制。 耐用品在这个研究项目中的重要性是由它们对产出和财富的高度参与所激发的。 该项目将有助于回答诸如借贷限制对总体活动的影响等问题。影响这些限制的政策变化的效果是什么？ 本课题是将个体异质性明确纳入宏观经济学的广泛尝试的一部分，旨在研究个体行为与宏观经济总量之间的相互作用如何响应经济政策的变化。

This Small Grant for Exploratory Research supports a quantitative study of how households borrowing constraints interact with aggregate activity over the business cycle. In particular it explores how shocks to fundamentals (technology, wealth distribution or fiscal policy among others) might generate large and persistent fluctuations through their feedback with borrowing constraints. The project also evaluates the effects of exogenous changes in the credit markets structure on the quantitative properties of the business cycle. The key new element will be the presence of durables goods. These goods will play a dual role, both delivering direct utility and providing collateral services to the households that own them. This second role will induce a new and powerful transmission mechanism from shocks to fundamentals. The importance of durable goods in this research project is motivated by their high participation in output and wealth. The project will help answer questions like what are the effects of borrowing constraints on aggregate activity? And what are the effects of policy changes that affect these constraints? This project is part of a broad attempt to explicitly incorporate individual heterogeneity into macroeconomics, in order to study how the interaction between individual behavior and macroeconomic aggregates moves in response to changes in economic policy.