Business Cycles, Economic Crises, and the Poor : Testing for Asymmetric Effects

Agenor, Pierre-Richard

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ADVERSE SELECTION;    ADVERSE SELECTION PROBLEMS;    AGGREGATE DEMAND;    ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION;    AUTOREGRESSION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2700
RP-ID  :  WPS2700

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The author examines whether outputcontraction associated with cyclical output fluctuations andeconomic crises have an asymmetric effect on poverty. Heidentifies four potential sources of asymmetry: expectationsand cofident factors, credit rationing at the firm level(induced by either adeverse selection problems or negativeshocks to net worth), borrowing constraints at the householdlevel, and the "labor hoarding" hypothesis. Healso identifies some testable implications of thesealternative explanations. The author then proposes a vectorautoregression technique (involving the detrended componentsof real output, the unemployment rate, real wages, and thepoverty rate) to test whether the initial cyclical positionof the economy, and the size of the initial drop in theoutput gap in a downturn, matter in assessing the extent towhich output shocks affect poverty. He applies the techniqueto Brazil, using annual data for 1981-99. The resultsindicate that poverty responds asymmetrically to outputshocks, showing less sensitivity when the economy isinitially in a downturn.