In this dissertation I explore the relationship between the frictions in a country's financial market and its business cycle movements. It is well known that the financial market is far from perfect, and shocks originating in such market could have sizable impact on the real economy. On the other hand, evolvement in the financial market could also be a reflection of the real economy. For example, economic downturn often leads to high borrowing cost for a country in the international financial market. The essays in this dissertation present an analysis of this two-way relationship, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The first essay studies the link between country credit spreads - defined as the difference between a home country's cost of borrowing from the international credit market and the world riskless interest rate - and the domestic business cycle fluctuations. By combining both empirical and theoretical analysis, this essay shows that deteriorating credit markets are both reflections of a declining economy and a major factor that depresses economic activity. This study uses a quarterly dataset over the period 1972Q1 to 2010Q1 for South Korea. The second essay probes the importance of financial shocks in creating business cycles in the United States. It starts from a theoretical dynamic stochastic generating equilibrium model, which identifies positive financial shocks as those that drag down the corporate net worth while raising domestic output. An empirical analysis later uses this property to identify financial shocks and study their importance in creating business cycle movement for the U.S. in the past fifty years. This property is in stark contrast to technological shocks, which raise both corporate net worth and total output.

The dissertation comprises of three chapters. The first chapter studies the role of credit market frictions in transmitting time-varying aggregate uncertainty to economic activity. First, we document that changes in country-specific aggregate volatility are positively correlated with the current account dynamics but negatively correlated with investment, output and credit flows. Then we build an International Real Business Cycle model with credit market frictions that matches these empirical facts. The version of the model with no financial frictions can only account for positive correlation between volatility and current account, but implies counterfactual predictions for the other correlations. In the second chapter we analyze banking crises and lending of last resort (LOLR) in a quantitative model of financial frictions with bank defaults. We find that the LOLR, even if it induces an increase in banks' leverage, is beneficial for small open economies. We show that pools of small economies cannot be successful LOLRs for empirically reasonable levels of liquidity support: They need too many uncorrelated countries or large initial levels of reserves to be sustainable. A country with ample reserves like China can be a sustainable international LOLR. The third chapter analyzes supranational deposit insurance in a quantitative model of financial and sovereign debt crisis. We show that the common deposit insurance fund can bring about sizable economic benefits by weakening an adverse link between domestic banking sector stress and sovereign default risk. The model simulations suggest that the sustainability of such a fund requires a certain number of participating countries with strong fundamentals, while feasibility calls for risk-based insurance premiums. These results can inform the design of the common European deposit insurance fund.

Greece isn't the only country drowning in debt. The Debt Supercycle—when the easily managed, decades-long growth of debt results in a massive sovereign debt and credit crisis—is affecting developed countries around the world, including the United States. For these countries, there are only two options, and neither is good—restructure the debt or reduce it through austerity measures. Endgame details the Debt Supercycle and the sovereign debt crisis, and shows that, while there are no good choices, the worst choice would be to ignore the deleveraging resulting from the credit crisis. The book: Reveals why the world economy is in for an extended period of sluggish growth, high unemployment, and volatile markets punctuated by persistent recessions Reviews global markets, trends in population, government policies, and currencies Around the world, countries are faced with difficult choices. Endgame provides a framework for making those choices.

The global economy has experienced four waves of rapid debt accumulation over the past 50 years. The first three debt waves ended with financial crises in many emerging market and developing economies. During the current wave, which started in 2010, the increase in debt in these economies has already been larger, faster, and broader-based than in the previous three waves. Current low interest rates mitigate some of the risks associated with high debt. However, emerging market and developing economies are also confronted by weak growth prospects, mounting vulnerabilities, and elevated global risks. A menu of policy options is available to reduce the likelihood that the current debt wave will end in crisis and, if crises do take place, will alleviate their impact.

Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as “hysteresis,” argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and theoretical literature that motivate this paradigm shift. The renewed interest in hysteresis has been sparked by the persistence of the Global Financial Crisis and fears of a slow recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The findings of the recent literature have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. In recessions, monetary and fiscal policies need to be more active to avoid the permanent scars of a downturn. And in good times, running a high-pressure economy could have permanent positive effects.