Credit Shocks and Equilibrium Dynamics in Consumer Durable Goods Markets

这个项目着眼于一种特定的耐用消费品--汽车，并考虑了美国汽车市场在大衰退中所起的作用。PI和他的研究合作者将使用新车和二手车的价格数据。以前关于宏观经济变化对汽车购买的影响的工作没有充分考虑二手车购买对市场的影响。这项研究以一种创新的方式纳入了二手车市场对宏观经济的影响。如果金融危机使贷款变得困难，一些低收入家庭将选择继续驾驶旧车，而不是用新的中档二手车取代他们的旧车。这反过来意味着对这些中端二手车的需求下降，因此二手车的市场价值下降。这一下降对新车市场产生了进一步的影响。收入较高的消费者现在知道，以旧换新将减少他们从现有汽车中获得的收入；因此，他们中的一些人推迟了购买新车的时间。新车购买量的减少对整个宏观经济都有影响。该项目将建立一个模型，说明这些因素是如何导致大衰退的。该模型还可以用来评估旨在刺激新车需求的计划的宏观经济影响。因此，由该奖项资助的研究将有助于更好的美国经济政策和更强大的美国经济。该项目研究二级市场的均衡动态对购买新的耐用消费品的行为在应对宏观经济冲击方面的作用。具体的焦点是信贷危机对汽车市场的影响，研究团队将使用大衰退前后美国新车和二手车价格的丰富微观数据集，并使用一个包含不同家庭的量化一般均衡模型。因此，这些项目有助于我们理解不同类型家庭的微观经济决策与通过一般均衡效应观察到的总体动态之间的联系。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project looks at one specific consumer durable, automobiles, and considers the role U.S. automobile markets played in the Great Recession. The PI and his research collaborator will use data on the price of both new and used cars. Previous work on the effects of macroeconomic changes on vehicle purchases has not fully considered how used vehicle purchases affect the market. This research incorporates the effects of used car markets on the macroeconomy in an innovative way. If a financial crisis makes it hard to borrow money, some lower-income households will choose to continue driving old vehicles rather than replacing their old automobiles with newer 'intermediate-age' used vehicles. This in turn means that demand for these intermediate used vehicles drops, and so the market value of used cars decreases. This decrease has a further effect on the market for new cars. Higher-income consumers now know they will get less from a trade-in of their current vehicle; in result, some of them delay new car purchases. The decrease in new car purchases has effects on the entire macroeconomy. The project will build a model of how these factors contributed to the Great Recession. The model can also be used to evaluate the macroeconomic effects of programs designed to stimulate demand for new cars. As a result, the research funded by this award will contribute to better U.S. economic policy and a stronger U.S. economy.The project studies the role of equilibrium dynamics in secondary markets for the behavior of purchases of new consumer durable goods in response to macroeconomic shocks. The specific focus is the effects of credit crises on car markets, and the research team will use a rich micro dataset on prices of new and used vehicles in the U.S. around the Great Recession with a quantitative general equilibrium model with heterogeneous households. The projects thus contributes to our understanding of linkages between the microeconomic decisions of heterogeneous households and observed aggregate dynamics via general equilibrium effects.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.