Risk Pooling, Intermediation Efficiency, and the Business Cycle
51 Pages Posted: 24 Jul 2019 Last revised: 6 Aug 2022
There are 4 versions of this paper
Risk Pooling, Intermediation Efficiency, and the Business Cycle
Risk Pooling, Intermediation Efficiency, and the Business Cycle
Risk Pooling, Leverage, and the Business Cycle
Risk Pooling, Intermediation Efficiency, and the Business Cycle
Date Written: March 30, 2020
Abstract
We study the relationship between intermediation efficiency and the macroeconomic dynamics within a tractable real business cycle model where: households face restricted market participation; financial intermediaries use leverage to provide costly risk pooling and safe assets. We analytically characterize the general equilibrium effects that associate intermediation costs to the output dynamics and find that a more (less) efficient financial sector can lead to higher (lower) growth, but also amplifies (dampens) output fluctuations. Relatedly, we identify the mechanisms by which the financial sector's impact on growth and its safe assets provision may generate pro- or counter-cyclical real risk-free rates.
Keywords: Amplification, business cycle, efficiency, dampening, restricted market participation, risk pooling
JEL Classification: E13, E32, E69, G12
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation