Time: 2023/05/23(Tue.), 13:30 – 15:00(Beijing Time)

Title:   Quantifying the Macroeconomic Impact of Credit Expansions

Venue: Zhonghui Buidling 106

About the speaker:

Yicheng Wang is currently an assistant professor in economics at PHBS, Peking University. He obtained his PhD from University of Rochester and has worked at the University of Oslo.  His main research interests include Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Empirical and Quantitative Macroeconomics, Macro Finance. He has published in several international leading journals, such as Review of Economic Dynamics, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. His research is supported by National and also Shenzhen Natural science funds.

Abstract:

The literature has emphasized many different channels though which changes in credit conditions affect economic activity, but the relative quantitative importance of these channels remains unclear.  Our paper seeks to evaluate the relative role played by multiple channels.  We combine a heterogeneous agent New Keynesian (HANK) model of a US state with evidence from the quasi-natural experiment of the deregulation of the banking sector across US states in the 1980s. We find that this deregulation led to an expansion of credit and economic activity and interpret it as an expansionary credit shock. The HANK model can fit the estimated impulse responses from the bank deregulation very well. While in theory it features multiple channels through which this expansionary credit shock can impact the wider economy, the quantitative exercises imply that the principal effects operate through consumer demand -- with lower interest rates stimulating consumer demand, output and employment. On the other hand, reduced borrowing costs for firms matter more for investment, firm entry and exits in the longer run.