Coordinating business cycles

Open Access
  • Authors: Mathieu Taschereau-Dumouchel and Edouard Schaal.
  • Journal of Monetary Economics, September, 2025.
Open Access Open Access Icon

We develop a quantitative theory of business cycles with coordination failures. Because of demand complementarities and increasing returns, firms seek to coordinate production and multiple equilibria arise. We use a global game approach to discipline equilibrium selection and show that the unique dynamic equilibrium exhibits multiple steady states. Coordination on high production may fail after a large transitory shock, pushing the economy in a quasi-permanent recession. Our calibrated model rationalizes various features of the 2007–2009 recession and its recovery. Government spending, while generally harmful, can increase welfare when the economy is transitioning between steady states. Other policy instruments are preferable to fix miscoordination.

Subscribe to our newsletter
Want to receive the latest news and updates from the BSE? Share your details below.
Founding Institutions
Distinctions
Logo BSE
© Barcelona Graduate School of
Economics. All rights reserved.
FacebookInstagramLinkedinXYoutube