Macro-finance interactions in the US: A global perspective

The paper aims at understanding the main channels of macro-finance interaction that have featured in the US recent “Great Recession” episode. Domestic interactions of macro and financial shocks are investigated within a global framework, allowing for spillover effects of the US crisis to other OECD countries, as well as to major emerging economies, and controlling for further feedback effects on the US economy. A total of 50 countries is investigated by means of a large-scale open economy macroeconometric model, set in the factor vector autoregressive (F-VAR) framework, over the period 1980:1-2009:1. The overall picture appears to be consistent with a boom-bust credit cycle mechanism, whereby financial factors are the triggering force of the downturn in real activity and worsened economic conditions feed back to asset prices, starting a cumulative process.