An expectations-driven interpretation of the “Great Recession”

Christopher Gunn and Alok Johri

Journal of Monetary Economics, 2013, vol. 60, issue 4, 391-407

Abstract: The boom-years preceding the “great recession” were a time of rapid innovation in the financial industry. We explore the idea that both the boom and eventual bust emerged from overoptimistic expectations of efficiency-gains in the financial sector. We treat the bankruptcy costs facing intermediaries in a costly state verification problem as a stochastic process, and model the boom-bust in terms of an unfulfilled news-shock where the expected fall in costs are eventually not realized. In response to a change in expectations only, the model generates a boom-bust cycle in aggregate activity, asset prices and leverage, and a countercyclical credit spread.

Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393213000524
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: An Expectations-Driven Interpretation of the "Great Recession" (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:moneco:v:60:y:2013:i:4:p:391-407

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2013.04.003

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Monetary Economics is currently edited by R. G. King and C. I. Plosser

More articles in Journal of Monetary Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().