This paper shows that a standard Real Business Cycle model driven by productivity shocks can successfully account for the 50 percent decline in cyclical volatility of output and its components, and labor input that has occurred since 1983. The model is successful because the volatility of productivity shocks has also declined significantly over the same time period. We then investigate whether the decline in the volatility of the Solow Residual is due to changes in the volatility of some other shock operating through a channel that is absent in the standard model. We therefore develop a model with variable capacity and labor utilization. We investigate whether government spending shocks, shocks that affect the household's first order condition for labor, and shocks that affect the household's first order condition for saving can plausibly account for the change in TFP volatility and in the volatility of output, its components, and labor. We find that none of these shocks are able to do this. This suggests that successfully accounting for the post-1983 decline in business cycle volatility requires a change in the volatility of a productivity-like shock operating within a standard growth model.

This paper shows that a standard Real Business Cycle model driven by productivity shocks can successfully account for the 50 percent decline in cyclical volatility of output and its components, and labor input that has occurred since 1983. The model is successful because the volatility of productivity shocks has also declined significantly over the same time period. We then investigate whether the decline in the volatility of the Solow Residual is due to changes in the volatility of some other shock operating through a channel that is absent in the standard model. We therefore develop a model with variable capacity and labor utilization. We investigate whether government spending shocks, shocks that affect the household's first order condition for labor, and shocks that affect the household's first order condition for saving can plausibly account for the change in TFP volatility and in the volatility of output, its components, and labor. We find that none of these shocks are able to do this. This suggests that successfully accounting for the post-1983 decline in business cycle volatility requires a change in the volatility of a productivity-like shock operating within a standard growth model. * We thank Stephen Parente, Ed Prescott, John Taylor, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions.

1 This paper is ongoing research for my dissertation at UCLA. I want to thank my advisor Lee Ohanian and also Costas Azariadis and Gary Hansen for their valuable help and support. I also thank all the participants at the macro proseminars at UCLA for their comments and feedback. Special thanks to Rocio Mora at Banco de la Republica in Colombia for kindly providing the data. All errors are my own.Abstract I build a general equilibrium, Þnancial accelerator model that incorporates an explicit technology for the intermediary sector. A credit multiplier emerges because of a borrowing constraint that is a function of asset prices, internal funds and lending rates. With this Þnancial friction I show that small changes in the productivity and intermediation costs of banks generate large and persistent ßuctuations in economic activity. The transmission channel relies on the role that assets and internal funds play as collateral. After a negative shock hits Þnancial intermediation productivity, the resulting credit crunch and economic slowdown induce a fall in asset prices and internal fund accumulation. This further modiÞes the present and future volume of collateral, thereby amplifying and propagating the initial shock. I argue that changes in banking regulation in Colombia in the late 1990's increased intermediation costs, reduced banking productivity and induced a credit channel story that Þts the theoretical model presented here. This new regulation enhanced the credit crunch and economic slowdown that was already underway. Colombian data on loan/deposit interest rate spreads, credit volume, asset prices and economic activity support this argument.

While in the early nineties Colombia grew at rates exceeding 4% and was catalogued as one of the top emerging markets, in 1999 its economy fell 4%, its exchange rate regime (a target zone) collapsed and by June of 2000 its unemployment level peaked at 20.4%. This turn of events is clearly associated to an episode of financial distress and a troubled intermediary sector that has haunted the Colombian economy in the late 1990's. The purpose of this paper is to understand the macroeconomic consequences of the recent financial crisis in Colombia. I solve, calibrate and simulate a simple version of the optimal growth model where banks absorb real resources from the economy and are also vulnerable to crises. The results are useful because they replicate the recent behavior of several macroeconomic variables in Colombia. Moreover, they give some insight into what should be expected from these variables in the near future. There are two fundamental take aways. First, the negative wealth and welfare effects of the Colombian financial crisis are non-negligible and long lasting (five years approximately). Second, the data suggests that the crisis which permeated the Colombian financial system since the last months of 1997 or first months of 1998 has been deepened by another adverse financial shock that hit the Colombian intermediary sector in mid/late 1999.

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