Crises and growth: A re-evaluation

Romain Ranciere, Aaron Tornell and Frank Westermann

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Abstract: We address the question of whether growth and welfare can be higher in crisis prone economies. First, we show that there is a robust empirical link between per-capita GDP growth and negative skewness of credit growth across countries with active financial markets. That is, countries that have experienced occasional crises have grown on average faster than countries with smooth credit conditions. We then present a two-sector endogenous growth model in which financial crises can occur, and analyze the relationship between financial fragility and growth. The underlying credit market imperfections generate borrowing constraints, bottlenecks and low growth. We show that under certain conditions endogenous real exchange rate risk arises and firms find it optimal to take on credit risk in the form of currency mismatch. Along such a risky path average growth is higher, but self-fulfilling crises occur occasionally. Furthermore, we establish conditions under which the adoption of credit risk is welfare improving and brings the allocation nearer to the Pareto optimal level. The design of the model is motivated by several features of recent crises: credit risk in the form of foreign currency denominated debt; costly crises that generate firesales and widespread bankruptcies; and asymmetric sectorial responses, where the nontradables sector falls more than the tradables sector in the wake of crises.

Keywords: Bailouts; bottlenecks; credit market imperfections; currency mismatch; financial fragility; macroeconomic voliatility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F34 F36 F43 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002-05, Revised 2003-09
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Crises and Growth: A Re-Evaluation (2004)
Working Paper: Crises and Growth: A Re-evaluation (2004)
Working Paper: Crises and Growth: A Re-evaluation (2004)
Working Paper: Crises and Growth: A Re-Evaluation (2003)
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