Business Cycles in a Small Open Economy with Agency Costs

Open economy extensions of otherwise typical DGE models have met with some difficulties. It is hard for example to replicate the correlation between output and the trade balance, as well as the variance of the latter variable. The correlation between the trade balance and the terms of trade is also problematic. Capital adjustment costs have been suggested to resolve some of these problems. In this paper, we propose a dynamic general equilibrium model which incorporates asymmetry in information and agency costs as an alternative. The model considers the possibility, associated with Irving Fisher's (1933) "debt-deflation" story of the great depression, that entrepreneurs may be limited in their investment activities by their amount of net worth. This limitation implies that the level of internal financing available for projects will influence aggregate economic activity. The main conclusion is that the proposed model is able to replicate the Canadian stylized facts fairly well. Moreover, compared to a typical DGE model, its predictions regarding the autocorrelation functions of output growth and investment are closer to those observed in the data.