Does deglobalisation make economies more resilient to recessions?

Marco Garofalo

Are less open economies more resilient to downturns? There is general agreement on the benefits of openness, but its adverse link to volatility is ambiguous. On the one hand, globalisation makes countries less sensitive to domestic disturbances, yet it also makes them more exposed to foreign shocks. In this post, I use local projections (LP) to show that international business cycles since 1870 appear to support a positive effect of openness on the economic resilience of a country, and that we may thus expect the current international slowbalisation trend to worsen future recessions.  

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Making Macroprudential Hay When the Sun Shines

Saleem Bahaj, Jonathan Bridges, Cian O’Neill & Frederic Malherbe.

It’s not just what you do; it’s when you do it – many decisions in life have “state contingent” costs and benefits. The payoffs from haymaking depend crucially upon the weather. Putting fodder away for a rainy day can be quick, cheap and prudent when skies are blue. But results may take a soggy and unproductive turn, if poorly timed. The financial climate is similarly important when assessing the costs and benefits of macroprudential policy changes. We argue that it is best to build the countercyclical capital buffer when the macroeconomic sun is shining. We find strong empirical evidence to support our claim.

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