Economic development, flow of funds, and the equilibrium interaction of financial frictions

We use a variety of different datasets from Thailand to study not only the extremes of micro and macro variables but also withincountry flow of funds and labor migration. We develop a general equilibrium model that encompasses regional variation in the type of financial friction and calibrate it to...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Moll, Benjamin, Townsend, Robert M., Zhorin, Victor
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
Format: Article
Published: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2018
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/114279
Description
Summary:We use a variety of different datasets from Thailand to study not only the extremes of micro and macro variables but also withincountry flow of funds and labor migration. We develop a general equilibrium model that encompasses regional variation in the type of financial friction and calibrate it to measured variation in regional aggregates. The model predicts substantial capital and labor flows fromrural to urban areas even though these differ only in the underlying financial regime. Predictions for micro variables not used directly provide a model validation. Finally, we estimate the impact of a policy of counterfactual, regional isolationism.