Paper #1245

Title:

International capital flows and credit market imperfections: A tale of two frictions

Authors:

Alberto Martin and Filippo Taddei

Date:

November 2010 (Revised: February 2012)

Abstract:

The financial crisis of 2007-08 has underscored the importance of adverse selection in financial markets. This friction has been mostly neglected by macroeconomic models of financial imperfections, however, which have focused almost exclusively on the effects of limited pledgeability. In this paper, we fill this gap by developing a standard growth model with adverse selection. Our main results are that, by fostering unproductive investment, adverse selection: (i) leads to an increase in the economy’s equilibrium interest rate, and; (ii) it generates a negative wedge between the marginal return to investment and the equilibrium interest rate. Under financial integration, we show how this translates into excessive capital inflows and endogenous cycles. We also extend our model to the more general case in which adverse selection and limited pledgeability coexist. We conclude that both frictions complement one another and show that limited pledgeability exacerbates the effects of adverse selection.

Keywords:

Limited Pledgeability, Adverse Selection, International Capital Flows, Credit Market Imperfections

JEL codes:

D53, D82, E22, F34

Area of Research:

Macroeconomics and International Economics

Published in:

Journal of International Economics, 89(2), 441-452, 2013

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