Bubbles and Credit Constraints

Transcription

1 Bubbles and Credit Constraints Jianjun Miao y Pengfei Wang z January 15, 2015 Abstract We provide a theory of credit-driven stock price bubbles in production economies with in - nitely lived agents. Firms meet stochastic investment opportunities and face endogenous credit constraints. Firms have limited commitment to repay debt. Credit constraints are derived from incentive constraints in optimal contracts which ensure default never occurs in equilibrium. A stock price bubble can emerge through a positive feedback loop mechanism. It commands a liquidity premium and improves investment e ciency because it raises debt capacity by relaxing incentive constraints. We provide conditions under which bubbles can coexist with other types of assets. We show that the collapse of stock price bubbles leads to a recession and a stock market crash. There is a government policy that can eliminate bubbles and achieve e cient allocation. Keywords: Credit-Driven Bubbles, Credit Constraints, Asset Price, Arbitrage, Q Theory, Liquidity, Multiple Equilibria JEL codes: E2, E44, G1 We thank Bruno Biais, Jess Benhabib, Toni Braun, Markus Brunnermeier, Henry Cao, Christophe Chamley, Tim Cogley, Russell Cooper, Douglas Gale, Jordi Gali, Mark Gertler, Simon Gilchrist, Christian Hellwig, Hugo Hopenhayn, Andreas Hornstein, Boyan Jovanovic, Bob King, Nobu Kiyotaki, Anton Korinek, Felix Kubler, Kevin Lansing, John Leahy, Eric Leeper, Zheng Liu, Gustavo Manso, Ramon Marimon, Erwan Morellec, Fabrizio Perri, Jean-Charles Rochet, Tom Sargent, Jean Tirole, Jon Willis, Mike Woodford, Tao Zha, Lin Zhang, and, especially, Wei Xiong and Yi Wen for helpful discussions. We have also bene tted from comments from seminar and conference participants at the BU macro lunch workshop, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, European University Institute, Indiana University, New York University, Toulouse School of Economics, CREI at University of Pompeu Fabra, University of Mannheim, University of Lausanne, University of Southern Denmark, University of Zurich, Zhejiang University, the 2011 Econometric Society Summer Meeting, the 2011 International Workshop of Macroeconomics and Financial Economics at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, Richmond, and Kansas, the Theory Workshop on Corporate Finance and Financial Markets at Stanford, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, the 2011 SED conference in Ghent, and the 7th Chinese Finance Annual Meeting. First version: December y Department of Economics, Boston University, 270 Bay State Road, Boston, MA Tel.: miaoj@bu.edu. Homepage: z Department of Economics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong. Tel: (+852) pfwang@ust.hk

2 1 Introduction This paper provides a theory of credit-driven stock price bubbles. Our theory is motivated by two observations. First, it is di cult to explain the stock market booms and busts entirely by fundamentals (Shiller (2005)). Second, the stock market booms are often accompanied by the credit market booms. For example, overoptimism in the 1990s towards an East Asian miracle generated booms in the housing and stock markets in some east Asian countries which were accompanied by lending booms and a large expansion of domestic credit (Collyns and Senhadji (2002)). Jordà, Schularick, and Taylor (2014) document empirical evidence on credit-driven bubbles in 17 developed countries since They nd that credit-driven bubbles are more dangerous to the macroeconomy than other types of bubbles, e.g., unleveraged irrational exuberance bubbles. To formalize our theory, we construct a tractable continuous-time model of a production economy in which identical households are in nitely lived and trade rm stocks. There is no aggregate uncertainty. In the baseline model households are risk neutral so that the rate of return on any stock is equal to the constant subjective discount rate. A continuum of rms meet idiosyncratic stochastic investment opportunities as in Kiyotaki and Moore (1997, 2005, 2008). Firms use intratemporal debt to nance investment because of a liquidity mismatch (Jermann and Quadrini (2012)): investment spending must be paid before the realization of investment returns. In addition, rms cannot raise equity or sell a lump-sum amount of capital to nance investment. This assumption re ects the fact that equity nancing is more costly than debt nancing. Another interpretation following Kiyotaki and Moore (2005, 2008) is that investment opportunities disappear so quickly that rms do not have enough time to raise equity or sell a large amount of capital. Firms face endogenous credit constraints, which are modeled in a similar way to Bulow and Rogo (1989), Kehoe and Levine (1993), Kiyotaki and Moore (1997), Alvarez and Jermann (2000), Albuquerque and Hopenhayn (2004), and Jermann and Quadrini (2012). The key idea is that borrowers ( rms) have limited commitment and debt repayments are imperfectly enforced. We consider the following lending contract to ensure the repayment of debt. A rm pledges its physical assets (capital) as collateral. If the rm does not repay its debt, then it loses its collateralized assets and the right to run the rm all to the lender. Thus the collateral value to the lender is equal to the market value of the rm with the collateralized assets. The lender and the rm renegotiate the debt such that the debt is limited by this collateral value. The resulting credit constraint is endogenously derived from the incentive constraint in an optimal contracting problem. Unlike Kiyotaki and Moore (1997) who assume that the collateral value is equal to the liquidation value of the collateralized assets, we derive the collateral value from the incentive constraint as the going-concern value of the reorganized rm. Because the going-concern value is priced in the 1

3 stock market, it may contain a bubble component. If both the lender and the credit-constrained rms optimistically believe that the collateral value is high possibly because of bubbles, the rms will borrow more and the lender will not mind lending more. Thus rms can nance more investment and earn more pro ts, making their assets indeed more valuable. This positive feedback loop mechanism makes the lender s and the borrower s beliefs self-ful lling and allows bubbles to exist in equilibrium. We refer to this type of equilibrium as the bubbly equilibrium. Our credit constraint is equivalent to that endogenously derived from the incentive constraint in Gertler and Kiyotaki (2010) and Gertler and Karadi (2011). Suppose that there is no collateral to borrow. A rm can default on debt by stealing a fraction of rm assets and running away. The incentive constraint in an optimal contract ensures that the continuation value of not defaulting is not smaller than the outside value of the stolen assets. The outside value does not contain a bubble. But a stock price bubble can relax the incentive constraint by raising the continuation value of not defaulting, thereby relaxing the credit constraint. 1 The aforementioned mechanism still works. There is another type of equilibrium in which no one believes in bubbles and hence bubbles do not appear. We call this type the bubbleless equilibrium. We provide explicit conditions to determine which type of equilibrium can exist. We prove that the economy has two steady states: a bubbly one and a bubbleless one. Both steady states are ine cient due to credit constraints and both are local saddle points. The equilibrium around the bubbly steady state is unique and bubbles persist in the long run along a stable manifold. But the equilibrium around the bubbleless steady state has indeterminacy of degree one and bubbles eventually burst along a stable manifold. Thus multiple equilibria in our model are not generated by indeterminacy with a unique steady state as in the literature surveyed by Benhabib and Farmer (1999) and Farmer (1999). It is di cult to generate rational bubbles for economies with in nitely lived agents (Tirole (1982) and Santos and Woodford (1997)). A necessary condition for bubbles to exist is that the growth rate of bubbles cannot exceed the growth rate of the economy. Otherwise, investors cannot a ord to buy into bubbles. In standard deterministic models bubbles on assets with exogenous payo s or on intrinsically useless assets must grow at the interest rate by the no-arbitrage principle. Thus the interest rate cannot exceed the growth rate of the economy. This implies that the present value of aggregate endowments must be in nity. In an overlapping generations (OLG) economy, this condition implies that the bubbleless equilibrium must be dynamically ine cient (Tirole (1985)). For in nitely lived agents, utility maximization implies a transversality condition for bubbles, which requires that the present value of bubbles be zero in the limit. This condition rules out bubbles in standard models with in nitely lived agents when bubbles grow at the interest rate. 1 See the online appendix for another type of credit constraints endogenously derived from optimal contracts that can generate a stock price bubble. 2

4 How does our model generate bubbles and how do we reconcile our result with that in Santos and Woodford (1997) or Tirole (1985)? The key is that stock price bubbles in our model are attached to productive assets (capital) with endogenous payo s. Our novel insight is that stock price bubbles have real e ects and a ect rm dividends. Although a no-arbitrage equation still holds in that the discount rate on bubbles is equal to the negative growth rate of the discounted marginal utility or the subjective discount rate for risk-neutral utility, the growth rate of bubbles is not equal to this rate. Rather, it is equal to the discount rate minus a collateral yield or liquidity premium. The collateral yield comes from the fact that stock price bubbles help relax credit constraints and allow rms to make more investment. We extend our baseline model to include other types of assets such as intertemporal bonds, assets with rents/dividends (e.g., tree), and assets without rents (pure bubble, e.g., tulip). Suppose that rms can trade one of these assets to nance investment. We study the conditions under which stock price bubbles or rm bubbles can coexist with other types of assets. If an asset can play the same role as a rm bubble in helping rms nance investment, then this asset will generate additional dividends to the rms, which are identical to the collateral yield. If, in addition, this asset delivers positive rents, then it dominates a bubble and hence they cannot coexist in equilibrium. But if this asset is a pure bubble, then it is a perfect substitute for the rm bubble. Only the total size of the bubble can be determined in equilibrium. For a rm bubble to coexist with intertemporal bonds, the equilibrium interest rate on the bonds must be zero in the steady state. We also need to introduce market frictions such as short-sales constraints on the additional assets (Kocherlakota (1992, 2009) and Kiyotaki and Moore (2005, 2008)). Without market frictions, the economy would achieve the e cient equilibrium and no bubble would exist. So far, we have only considered deterministic bubbles. Following Blanchard and Watson (1982) and Weil (1987), we construct a third type of equilibrium with stochastic bubbles in the baseline model. In this equilibrium all agents believe that there is a positive probability that bubbles will burst at each date. When bubbles burst, they cannot reappear. We show that when all agents believe that the probability of bubble bursting is small enough, an equilibrium with stochastic bubbles exists. In contrast to Weil (1987), we show that after a bubble bursts, a recession occurs in that there is a credit crunch and consumption and output fall eventually. In addition, immediately after the bubble bursts, investment falls discontinuously and the stock market crashes. The recession and the stock market crash occur without any exogenous shock to the fundamentals of the economy. What is an appropriate government policy in the wake of a bubble collapse? The ine ciency in our model comes from the rms credit constraints. The collapse of bubbles tightens these constraints and impairs investment e ciency. To overcome this ine ciency, the government can issue public bonds backed by lump-sum taxes. Public bonds can provide liquidity to rms. Thus public 3

5 bonds can help relax credit constraints and play the same role as bubbles do. If the government constantly retires public bonds at the interest rate to maintain a constant total bond value and pays the interest payments of these bonds by levying lump-sum taxes, then this policy will eliminate bubbles and allow the economy to achieve the e cient equilibrium. Related literature Some papers in the literature (e.g., Scheinkman and Weiss (1986), Kocherlakota (1992, 2008), Santos and Woodford (1997) and Hellwig and Lorenzoni (2009)) nd that in nite-horizon models with borrowing constraints may generate rational bubbles. Unlike these papers which study pure exchange economies, our paper analyzes a production economy with bubbles in stock prices whose payo s are endogenously determined by investment and a ected by bubbles. 2 Our paper is closely related to some recent studies of production economies with bubbles, that introduce credit constraints to OLG models (Caballero and Krishnamurthy (2006), Farhi and Tirole (2012), and Martin and Ventura (2011, 2012)) and to in nite-horizon models (Woodford (1990), Kiyotaki and Moore (2008), Kocherlakota (2009), Wang and Wen (2012), and Hirano and Yanagawa (2013)). These papers contain the idea that bubbles can help relax credit constraints and raise investment. Based on optimal contracts with limited commitment, our modeling of credit constraints is di erent from theirs. Our novel insight is that some types of credit constraints beyond the usual collateral constraint can generate a stock price bubble because the bubble can raise rm dividends by relaxing incentive constraints in optimal contracts and raising debt capacity. Rather than studying stock price bubbles, the extant literature typically studies pure bubbles on intrinsically useless assets (e.g., money) that can provide liquidity by raising the borrower s net worth. 3 For example, Kiyotaki and Moore (2008) assume that entrepreneurs can pledge a fraction of investment returns as collateral to borrow. Equity (capital) is illiquid and only a fraction can be sold to nance investment. They show that money as a pure bubble asset can circulate because it is more liquid than other assets and raises net worth. Building on their insights, Kocherlakota (2009) assumes that entrepreneurs use land as collateral. Land is traded as an intrinsically useless asset. Land bubbles can emerge and burst. Unlike these papers, our main contribution is to provide a theory of credit-driven stock price bubbles in production economies with in nitely lived agents. The distinction between a pure bubble and a stock price bubble is important because the stock price bubble is not directly observable or tradable, but can a ect dividends endogenously. Building on Samuelson (1958), Diamond (1965), and Tirole (1985), Caballero and Krishnamurthy (2006), Farhi and Tirole (2012), and Martin and Ventura (2012) study pure bubbles in OLG models with credit constraints. Credit constraints are not essential for the emergence of 2 See Scheinkman and Xiong (2003) for a model of bubbles based on heterogeneous beliefs and Brunnermeier (2009) and Miao (2014) for surveys of various theories of bubbles. 3 See Vayanos and Wang (2012) for a survey of theories of liquidity. 4

6 bubbles in the traditional OLG models, unlike in in nite-horizon models. But they allow bubbles to emerge in dynamically e cient OLG economies. An important issue speci c to in nite-horizon models is that rms may eventually overcome credit constraints by saving over time if they can buy su ciently many (intertemporal) bonds from households. Thus one must impose borrowing constraints or short-sales constraints on households so that they cannot sell too many bonds. This generates a low interest rate on bonds. The spread between the stock return and the interest rate re ects the liquidity premium. By contrast, the stock return is equal to the interest rate in Farhi and Tirole (2011) and Martin and Ventura (2011, 2012). Caballero and Krishnamurthy (2006) show that stochastic bubbles are bene cial because they provide domestic stores of value, thereby reducing capital out ows while increasing investment. But they come at a cost, as they expose the country to bubble crashes and capital ow reversals. Farhi and Tirole (2012) study the interplay between inside and outside liquidity by assuming that only a fraction of investment returns can be pledgeable. Bubbles and outside liquidity do not raise debt capacity directly, but they can raise entrepreneurs net worth used to nance more investment. The rise in investment then a ects debt capacity indirectly through a leverage e ect, which depends on the interest rate. The impact of bubbles on investment depends on the relative potency of a liquidity e ect and a leverage e ect. Martin and Ventura (2012) introduce investor sentiment shocks and study stochastic equilibria with bubble creation and destruction. They assume that productive investors cannot borrow from unproductive ones. When a market for pure bubbles opens, productive investors raise their net worth by selling bubbles to unproductive ones. Thus productive investors can make more investment, thereby raising investment e ciency. Sentiment shocks can generate macroeconomic uctuations without shocks to the fundamentals. Since pure bubbles (except for money, arts, etc.) are rarely traded in reality, Martin and Ventura (2012) reinterpret their benchmark model by allowing entrepreneurs to trade rms in the stock market. Entrepreneurs can pledge an empty rm as collateral. This modi ed model is equivalent to their benchmark when the market value of the rm is equal to the pure bubble value. In a similar model Martin and Ventura (2011) assume that entrepreneurs can start new rms and non-entrepreneurs trade old rms and give credit to new rms. A rm can use a fraction of its investment returns and market value as collateral to borrow. A bubble in rm value can emerge in addition to a fundamental component. We also show that rm value consists of a fundamental component and a bubble component. Unlike Farhi and Tirole (2011) and Martin and Ventura (2011, 2012), we explicitly characterize the collateral yield provided by the bubble component and link the fundamental component to the Q theory of investment (Tobin (1969) and Hayashi (1982)). As in Hayashi (1982), rms are in nitely lived and make investment decisions that maximize their stock market values. Our framework of 5

7 in nite-horizon production economies with bubbles can be easily extended to incorporate many standard ingredients for both theoretical and quantitative analyses of asset prices, business cycles, and economic growth (Miao and Wang (2012, 2013, 2014), Miao, Wang, Xu (2012), Miao, Wang and Xu (2013), and Miao, Wang, and Zhou (2014)). For example, Miao, Wang and Xu (2013) apply Bayesian estimation methods to study stock market bubbles and business cycles using our framework. By contrast, existing OLG models of bubbles are con ned to two- or three-period lived agents. Although these models are tractable to deliver economic insights, they are not suitable for a quantitative analysis because the time period in these models cannot be tied to the data frequency. Moreover, if each generation is equally altruistic toward the next generation with intergenerational transfers, then the entire dynasty behaves as a single in nitely lived agent (Barro (1974)). Thus studying models with in nitely lived agents will deepen our understanding of asset bubbles and complement OLG models. 2 The Baseline Model We consider an in nite-horizon production economy, consisting of a continuum of identical households and a continuum of ex ante identical rms indexed by j 2 [0; 1]. uncertainty. Time is continuous and denoted by t 0: 2.1 Households There is no aggregate There is a continuum of identical households of a unit measure. The representative household is risk neutral and derives utility from a consumption stream fc t g according to the utility function R 1 0 e rt C t dt; where r is the subjective discount rate (or rate of time preference). 4 Households supply labor inelastically and aggregate labor supply is normalized to one. They trade rm stocks without any trading frictions. The net supply of each rm s stock is normalized to one. The representative household faces the budget constraint where V j t Z C t + Z V j _ j t tdj = j t j t dj + w tn t ; (1) denotes rm j s stock price, j t denotes holdings of rm j s stocks, j t denotes rm j s dividends determined by its optimization problem, w t denotes the wage rate, and N t denotes labor supply. 5 Because there is no aggregate uncertainty, linear utility gives the rst-order condition rv j t = j t + _ V j t ; (2) 4 In Appendix B we will show that our key insights hold true for the case of risk averse households. 5 We use X _ t to denote dx t=dt for any variable X t: Households optimization problem must also satisfy a no-ponzigame condition lim T!1 e R rt V j j T T dj 0 (see Acemoglu (2009)). 6

8 for each rm j: This equation says that the rate of return (or the discount rate) on each stock must be equal to r. Linear utility implies the transversality condition (see, e.g., Ekeland and Scheinkman (1986) and Acemoglu (2009)), lim e rt V j j T!1 T T = lim e rt V j T!1 T = 0; (3) where we have used the market-clearing condition j T = 1 for all T and all j: 2.2 Firms Each rm j 2 [0; 1] combines labor N j t and capital K j t to produce output according to the Cobb- Douglas production function Y j t = (K j t ) (N j t )1 ; 2 (0; 1) : After solving the static labor choice problem, we obtain the operating pro ts R t K j t = max N j t (K j t ) (N j t )1 w t N j t ; (4) where w t is the wage rate and R t is given by R t = wt 1 1 : (5) We will show later that R t is equal to the marginal product of capital in equilibrium. Following Kiyotaki and Moore (1997, 2005, 2008), we assume that each rm j meets an opportunity to invest in capital over the small time interval [t; t + t] with Poisson probability t. With probability 1 t; no investment opportunity arrives. This assumption captures rm-level investment lumpiness and generates ex post rm heterogeneity. Assume that the arrival of an investment opportunity is independent across rms so that a law of large numbers can be applied to aggregation. This means that only a fraction t of rms have investment opportunities at each time t. There is no insurance market against having an investment opportunity. Investment transforms one unit of consumption goods into one unit of capital. Firms can buy or sell capital at a ow rate in a capital good market at the price Q t at each time t. For simplicity, suppose that rms nance investment I j t using intratemporal loans (Jermann and Quadrini (2012)) and cannot use equity nancing. This assumption re ects the fact that equity nancing is more costly than debt nancing and that selling a lump-sum amount of capital stock takes time. 6 Intratemporal loans have no interest and the credit market for these loans are operated among rms. The interest rate on the intratemporal debt is zero and its price is one. Following Kiyotaki and Moore (2005, 2008) and Jermann and Quadrini (2012), we assume that there is a 6 In the online appendix we allow rms to sell a fraction of their capital to nance investment as in Kiyotaki and Moore (2005, 2008). We show that our results carry over except that is replaced with + : 7

9 liquidity mismatch in that investment spending I j t must be paid immediately after the arrival of an investment opportunity at the beginning of time t and before the realization of investment returns Q t I j t. At the end of time t rms repay their debt after the realization of the returns. Firms without investment opportunities have cash and are the lenders. Assume that rms cannot borrow or save by trading intertemporal debt. We will relax this assumption in Section 6.1. Let the ex ante market value of the rm prior to the realization of an investment opportunity shock be V t (K j t ); where we suppress aggregate state variables in the argument. Management acts in the best interest of shareholders so that V t (K j t ) = V j t satis es the following Bellman equation by (2): rv t K j t = max _K j t ; Ij t D j t + _ V t K j t h + L j t I j t + Q t I j t L j t i (6) subject to D j t = R tk j t Q t _ K j t + Kj t ; (7) and some additional constraints to be speci ed shortly. Here represents the depreciation rate of capital and D j t represents dividends excluding net investment returns. Firm j receives internal funds R t K j t and purchases (or sell) capital _K j t at price Q t. When an investment opportunity arrives, the rm borrows L j t from other rms that do not have investment opportunities, and makes investment I j t before receiving investment returns Q ti j t. There is no jump in capital because we assume that the rm cannot sell a lump-sum amount of capital immediately after the Poisson arrival of an investment opportunity. Investment is subject to a nancing constraint I j t Lj t : (8) Loans L j t are fully repaid after the realization of investment returns Q ti j t when Q ti j t Lj t : The key assumption of our model is that loans are subject to credit constraints. In the baseline model we consider the following collateral constraint: L j t V t(k j t ): (9) This constraint is endogenously derived from an incentive constraint in an optimal contract between rm j and the lender with limited commitment (Jermann and Quadrini (2012)). To best understand it, we consider a discrete time approximation. In the time interval [t; t + t]; the contract speci es investment I j t and loans Lj t at the beginning of period t; and repayments Lj t at the end of period t; only when an investment opportunity arrives with Poisson probability t: When no investment opportunity arrives, the rm does not invest and hence does not borrow. Firm j may default on debt at the end of period t. If it defaults, then the rm and the lender will renegotiate the 8

10 loan repayment. In addition, the lender has the right to reorganize the rm. Because of default costs, the lender can only seize a fraction of capital K j t : Alternatively, we may interpret as an e ciency parameter in that the lender may not be able to e ciently use the rm s assets K j t : The lender can run the rm with these assets at the beginning of period t + t and obtain rm value e rt V t+t (K j t ) at time t. Or it can sell these assets to a third party at the going-concern value e rt V t+t (K j t ) if the third party can run the rm using assets Kj t at the beginning of period t + t. This value is the threat value (or the collateral value) to the lender at the end of period t. Following Jermann and Quadrini (2012), we assume that the rm has all the bargaining power in the renegotiation through Nash bargaining and the lender obtains only the threat value. The key di erence from Jermann and Quadrini (2012) is that the threat value to the lender is the going-concern value in our model, while Jermann and Quadrini (2012) assume that the lender liquidates the rm s assets and obtains the liquidation value in the event of default. 7 Enforcement requires that, after an investment opportunity arrives at date t; the continuation value to the rm of not defaulting be no smaller than the continuation value of defaulting, that is, L j t + e rt V t+t (K j t+t ) e rt V t+t (K j t+t ) e rt V t+t (K j t ): (10) This constraint ensures that there is no default in an optimal contract. Simplifying yields L j t e rt V t+t (K j t ): Taking the continuous-time limit as t! 0; we obtain the credit constraint in (9). (1997): Note that our modeling of the collateral constraint is di erent from that of Kiyotaki and Moore where Q t K j t L j t Q tk j t : (11) is the liquidation value of the collateralized assets. We may reinterpret this constraint as an incentive constraint as in (10) where e rt V t+t (K j t ) is replaced with Q tk j t : In Section 5 we will show that this type of collateral constraint will rule out stock price bubbles. 8 By contrast, according to (9), we allow the collateralized assets to be valued in the stock market as the goingconcern value when the rm is reorganized and kept running using the collateralized assets after 7 U.S. bankruptcy law has recognized the need to preserve the going-concern value when reorganizing businesses in order to maximize recoveries by creditors and shareholders (see 11 U.S.C et seq.). Bankruptcy laws seek to preserve going concern value whenever possible by promoting the reorganization, as opposed to the liquidation, of businesses. Bris, Welch and Zhu (2006) nd empirical evidence that Chapter 11 reorganizations are less costly and more widely observed than Chapter 7 liquidations. 8 In Chapter 14 of Tirole s (2006) textbook, he shows that there may exist multiple equilibria in a simpli ed variant of the Kiyotaki and Moore (1997) model. In contrast to ours, these equilibria are characterized by a one-dimensional nonlinear dynamical system. Some equilibria may exhibit cycles. We would like to thank Jean Tirole for a helpful discussion on this point. 9

11 default. If both the rm and the lender believe that the rm s assets are overvalued due to stock market bubbles, then these bubbles will help relax the collateral constraint, providing a positive feedback loop mechanism. 2.3 Competitive Equilibrium Let K t = R 1 0 Kj t dj; I t = R 1 0 Ij t dj; and Y t = R 1 0 Y j t dj denote the aggregate capital stock, average investment of rms with investment opportunities, the aggregate labor demand, and aggregate output, respectively. Then a competitive equilibrium is de ned as sequences of fy t g ; fc t g ; fk t g, fi t g ; fn t g ; fw t g ; fr t g ; fv t (K j t )g; fij t g; fkj t g; fn j t g such that households and rms optimize and markets clear in that j t = 1; N t = Z 1 N j t 0 dj = 1; C t + I t = Y t ; _K t = K t + I t : 3 Equilibrium System We rst solve an individual rm s optimal contracting problem (6) subject to (7), (8), and (9) when the wage rate w t or R t in (5) is taken as given. This problem does not give a contraction mapping and hence may admit multiple solutions. We conjecture that the ex ante rm value takes the following form: V t (K j t ) = Q tk j t + B t; (12) where B t is a nonpredetermined variable. Since V t (K j t ) must be always nonnegative due to limited liability, we must have B t 0: Note that B t = 0 is a possible solution in general equilibrium. In this case we interpret Q t K j t as the fundamental value of the rm. The fundamental value is proportional to the rm s assets K j t ; which has the same form as that in Hayashi (1982). Intuitively, the rm has no fundamental value if it has no assets (K j t = 0): There may be another solution in which B t > 0 due to optimistic beliefs. In this case, we interpret B t as a bubble component since the rm is still valued at B t even when there is no market fundamental, i.e., K j t = 0: In Section 6.2 we will show that when an intrinsically useless asset is traded in the market, its price and B t follow the same asset-pricing equation (i.e., they are perfect substitutes), further justifying our interpretation of B t as a bubble component. 9 9 According to the standard de nition for exchange economies, a bubble is equal to the di erence between the market value of an asset and the present value of the asset s exogenously given dividends. It is subtle to apply this de nition to our model since dividends are endogenously generated through investment and production. Bubbles can help rms make more investment and hence generate additional dividends. One criticism of the standard test for bubbles is that it is hard to separate bubbles from fundamentals in the data (see Gurkaynak (2008) and Galí and Gambetti (2013)). If one prefers not to use the term bubbles, one can call B t a sunspot, self-ful lling or speculative 10

12 The following result characterizes rm j s optimization problem and its proof along with proofs of other results in the paper is given in Appendix A. Proposition 1 Suppose that Q t > 1. Then the optimal investment level when an investment opportunity arrives is given by I j t = Q tk j t + B t; (13) where _B t = rb t B t (Q t 1); (14) _Q t = (r + ) Q t R t Q t (Q t 1); (15) and R t is given by (5). Moreover, the following transversality conditions hold: lim e rt Q T K T = 0, T!1 lim e rt B T = 0: (16) T!1 To better understand the intuition behind this proposition, we substitute (12) and (7) into (6) to rewrite the rm s problem explicitly as rq t K j t + rb t = max I j t ; K _ j t R t K j t + _ Q t K j t + Q t _ K j t + _ B t Q t _ K j t + Kj t + (Q t 1) I j t (17) subject to I j t Q tk j t + B t; (18) where (18) follows from (8), (9), and (12). In the special case where = 0; (18) reduces to the credit constraint studied by Martin and Ventura (2012) who show that rm value is equal to the bubble in a bubbly equilibrium in their OLG model. By contrast, we will show in Section 5 that rm value consists of a bubble component B t and a fundamental component Q t K t in a bubbly equilibrium. Given (12), we can reinterpret our credit constraint (9) following Gertler and Kiyotaki (2010) and Gertler and Karadi (2011). In particular, (9) is equivalent to L j t + V t(k j t ) (1 ) Q tk j t : (19) The left-hand side is the continuation value of the rm if the rm chooses to repay the debt L j t. The right-hand side is the value if the rm chooses to default. It steals a fraction 1 of rm assets and runs away. In an optimal contract, the preceding incentive constraint must hold. A notable component without a ecting our results. 11

13 feature of this incentive constraint is that the value on default does not contain a bubble. But the stock price bubble B t can still relax the incentive constraint. When an investment opportunity arrives, an additional unit of investment costs the rm one unit of the consumption good, but generates an additional value of Q t. Since Q t t (K j t )=@Kj t by (12), Q t represents the marginal value of the rm following a unit increase in installed capital, i.e., Tobin s marginal Q: If Q t > 1; the rm will make the maximal possible level of investment so that the credit constraint (9) or (18) binds. If Q t = 1; the investment level is indeterminate. If Q t < 1; the rm will make the minimal possible level of investment. This investment choice is similar to Tobin s Q theory (Tobin (1969) and Hayashi (1982)). In what follows, we impose assumptions to ensure Q t > 1 in the neighborhood of the steady state equilibrium. We thus obtain the investment rule given in (13). Substituting this rule into the Bellman equation (17) and matching coe cients, we obtain equations (14) and (15). Since Q t _K j t cancels out in (17) due to the constant-returns-to-scale technology, the amount of capital purchases K _ j t is indeterminate at the rm level. Thus rm dynamics are indeterminate. It is possible that some rms grow slower and others grow faster. The rm size is bounded by the aggregate capital stock. The indeterminacy of rm dynamics at the micro-level will not a ect the aggregate equilibrium dynamics as shown in Proposition 2 below, which are our focus. Equation (15) is an asset-pricing equation for capital. It says that the return on a unit of capital rq t is equal to the sum of the marginal product of capital R t, the additional value generated from new investment Q t (Q t 1); and capital gains, minus the depreciation Q t : Equation (14) is an asset-pricing equation for the bubble. Note that the stock price bubble is not attached to a traded intrinsically useless asset. Only stocks are directly traded in the market. Shareholders portfolio choice problem studied in Section 2.1 delivers the no-arbitrage equation (2). Management acts in the best interest of shareholders and solves the dynamic programming problem (6) or (17). Both (14) and (15) are derived from this optimization problem. To interpret (14), we observe that the expectation of a higher rm value due to a bubble B t > 0 allows the borrowing constraint to be relaxed as revealed by (18). Thus, bubbles are accompanied by a credit boom, leading the rm to make more investments by B t. This raises rm value by (Q t 1) B t if Q t > 1 by (17), justifying the initial optimistic beliefs. We can interpret (Q t 1) as a collateral yield or a liquidity premium. The sum of the collateral yield and the capital gain of the bubble B _ t is equal to the total return rb t as shown in (14). We will provide a further discussion of equation (14) in Section 5. Although our model features a constant-returns-to-scale technology, marginal Q is not equal to 12

14 average Q in the presence of bubbles, because average Q is equal to V t (K t ) K t = Q t + B t K t ; for B t 6= 0: Thus the existence of stock price bubbles invalidates Hayashi s (1982) result. In the empirical investment literature, researchers typically use average Q to replace marginal Q under the constantreturns-to-scale assumption because marginal Q is not observable. Our analysis demonstrates that the existence of collateral constraints implies that stock prices may contain a bubble component that makes marginal Q not equal to average Q: Next we aggregate individual rm s decision rules and impose market-clearing conditions. We then characterize a competitive equilibrium by a system of nonlinear di erential equations: Proposition 2 Suppose that Q t > 1: Then the equilibrium variables (B t ; Q t ; K t ) satisfy the following system of di erential equations (14), (15), and _K t = K t + (Q t K t + B t ); K 0 given, (20) and the transversality conditions (16), where R t = K 1 t. Equation (20) gives the law of motion for the aggregate capital stock derived from the marketclearing condition for capital. We use the market-clearing condition for labor and (5) to derive R t = Kt 1 : The system of di erential equations (14), (15), and (20) provides us a tractable way to analyze equilibrium. If we just focus on the rm s optimization problem in partial equilibrium taking Q t and w t as given, then V t (K j t ) = Q tk j t + B t with B t > 0 gives the maximal rm value. However, since V t (K j t ) is the stock price, it is prone to speculation in general equilibrium. We will show later that both B t = 0 and B t > 0 can be supported in general equilibrium under some conditions. That is, our model has multiple equilibria. This re ects the usual notion of a competitive equilibrium: Given a price system, individuals optimize. If this price system also clears all markets, then it is an equilibrium system. There could be multiple equilibria with di erent price systems. And di erent price systems would generate di erent optimization problems with di erent sets of constraints. After obtaining the solution for (B t ; Q t ; K t ) ; we can derive the equilibrium wage rate w t = (1 ) K t ; aggregate output Y t = K t ; aggregate investment, I t = (Q t K t + B t ) ; (21) and aggregate consumption C t = Y t I t : We focus on two types of equilibrium. 10 The rst type 10 We focus on the case where either all rms have the same size of bubbles in their stock prices or no rms have 13

15 is bubbleless, for which B t = 0 for all t: In this case, the market value of rm j is equal to its fundamental value in that V t (K j t ) = Q tk j t. The second type is bubbly, for which B t > 0 for some t and V t (K j t ) = Q tk j t + B t: Both types can exist due to self-ful lling beliefs. We next study these two types of equilibrium. 4 Bubbleless Equilibrium In a bubbleless equilibrium, B t = 0 for all t: Equation (14) becomes an identity. We only need to focus on (Q t ; K t ) determined by the di erential equations (15) and (20) in which B t = 0 for all t. We rst analyze the steady state, in which all aggregate variables are constant over time so that _Q t = K _ t = 0. We use X to denote the steady-state value of any variable X t : We use a variable with an asterisk to denote its value in the bubbleless equilibrium. Proposition 3 (i) If ; (22) then there exists a unique bubbleless steady-state equilibrium with Q = Q E 1 and K = K E ; where K E is the e cient capital stock satisfying (K E ) 1 = r + : (ii) If then there exists a unique bubbleless steady-state equilibrium with In addition, K < K E : 0 < < ; (23) Q = > 1; (24) (K ) 1 = r + : (25) Assumption (22) says that if rms pledge su cient assets as collateral, then the collateral constraints will not bind in equilibrium. The competitive equilibrium allocation is the same as the e cient allocation. The e cient allocation is achieved by solving a social planner s problem in which the social planner maximizes the representative household s utility subject to the resource constraint only. Note that we assume that the social planner also faces stochastic investment opportunities, like rms in a competitive equilibrium. Thus one may view our de nition of the e cient allocation as the constrained e cient allocation. Unlike rms in a competitive equilibrium, the social planner is not subject to collateral constraints. bubbles. It is possible to have another type of equilibrium in which only a fraction of rms have di erent sizes of bubbles in their stock prices (see Appendix B). 14

16 Assumption (23) says that if rms do not pledge su cient assets as collateral, then the collateral constraints will be su ciently tight so that rms are credit constrained in the neighborhood of the steady-state equilibrium in which Q > 1. We can then apply Proposition 2 in this neighborhood. Proposition 3 also shows that the steady-state capital stock for the bubbleless equilibrium is less than the e cient steady-state capital stock. This re ects the fact that not enough resources are transferred from savers to investors due to the collateral constraints. We can verify that R K > I = K so that rms without investment opportunities have enough funds to lend to rms with investment opportunities in the bubbleless steady state and hence in the neighborhood of the bubbleless steady state. More intuitively, in the small time interval [t; t + t] ; the total funds needed to nance investment for all rms with investment opportunities are I t t: The total cash owned by all rms without investment opportunities is (1 t) R t K t t: In a neighborhood of the bubbleless steady state (1 t) R t K t t > I t t for a su ciently small t: For (23) to hold, the arrival rate of the investment opportunity must be su ciently small, holding everything else constant. The intuition is that if is too high, then too many rms will have investment opportunities so that the accumulated aggregate capital stock will be su ciently large, thereby lowering the capital price Q to the e cient level as shown in part (i) of Proposition 3. Condition (23) requires that technological constraints at the rm level be su ciently tight. To study the local dynamics around the bubbleless steady state (Q ; K ) ; we linearize the system of di erential equations (15) and (20) around (Q ; K ) for B t = 0 for all t: In the online appendix we prove that the linearized system has a positive eigenvalue and a negative eigenvalue so that (Q ; K ) is a saddle point. Thus, in the neighborhood of (Q ; K ) ; for any given initial value K 0 ; there is a unique initial value Q 0 such that (Q t ; K t ) converges to the bubbleless steady state (Q ; K ) along a unique saddle path as t! 1. 5 Bubbly Equilibrium In this section we study the bubbly equilibrium in which B t > 0 for all t: We will analyze the dynamic system for (B t ; Q t ; K t ) given in (14), (15), and (20). Before we conduct a formal analysis later, we rst explain why bubbles can exist in our in nite-horizon model. The key lies in understanding equation (14), rewritten here as r = _ B t B t + (Q t 1); for B t 6= 0: (26) The rst term on the right-hand side is the rate of capital gains of bubbles. The second term represents the collateral yield. Equation (14) or (26) re ects a no-arbitrage relation in that the 15

17 discount rate r on the bubble is equal to the sum of the rate of capital gains and the collateral yield. The existing literature on bubbles (e.g., Blanchard and Watson (1982), Tirole (1985), and Weil (1987)) typically studies bubbles on zero-payo assets or unproductive assets with exogenously given payo s. In this case the second term on the left-hand side of (26) vanishes and bubbles grow at the discount rate r. If we adopt the Kiyotaki and Moore (1997) collateral constraint (11), then it follows from (8) and (11) that optimal investment satis es I j t = Q tk j t when Q t > 1: Substituting this investment rule and (12) into (17), we deduce that bubbles grow at the rate r; i.e., rb t = _ B t. In this case there is no collateral yield. The transversality condition (16) implies that lim T!0 e rt B 0 e rt = B 0 = 0 and thus a stock price bubble cannot emerge. The transversality condition is not needed in OLG models and a bubble can emerge in dynamically ine cient OLG economies (Tirole (1985)). By contrast, stock price bubbles in our model can in uence fundamentals (dividends) due to the positive feedback e ect through our collateral constraint (9) or (18). Speci cally, one dollar bubble raises the collateral value by one dollar and allows the rm to borrow an additional dollar. The rm then makes one more dollar of investment when an investment opportunity arrives with the Poisson arrival rate. The investment raises rm value by Q t > 1: Subtracting one dollar of costs, we then deduce that the second term on the right-hand side of (26) represents the net increase in rm value for each dollar of a bubble. This term causes the growth rate of bubbles to be lower than the discount rate r. Thus the transversality conditions cannot rule out bubbles in our model. We can also show that the bubbleless equilibrium is dynamically e cient in our model. Speci cally, the golden rule capital stock is given by K GR = (=) 1 1 : One can verify that K < K GR : Thus one cannot use the condition for the OLG economies in Tirole (1985) to ensure the existence of bubbles. Next we will give our new conditions. 5.1 Steady State We rst study the existence of a bubbly steady state in which B > 0: We use a variable with a subscript b to denote this variable s bubbly steady state value. Proposition 4 There exists a bubbly steady state satisfying B K b = ( r + 1) > 0; (27) Q b = r + 1 > 1; (28) (K b ) 1 = [(1 )r + ]( r + 1); (29) 16

18 if and only if the following condition holds: 0 < < r + : (30) In addition, (i) Q b < Q ; (ii) K GR > K E decreases with : > K b > K, and (iii) the bubble-asset ratio B=K b Condition (30) reveals that bubbles occur when is su ciently small, ceteris paribus. The intuition is as follows. When the degree of pledgeability is su ciently low, the credit constraint is too tight and a bubble can help relax this constraint. This allows rms to borrow more and invest more. If the collateral constraint is not tight enough, rms can borrow su cient funds to nance investment. In this case a bubble serves no function. Note that condition (30) implies condition (23). Thus, if condition (30) holds, then there exist two steady state equilibria: one bubbleless and the other bubbly. The bubbleless steady state is analyzed in Proposition 3. Propositions 4 and 3 reveal that the steady-state capital price is lower in the bubbly equilibrium than in the bubbleless equilibrium, i.e., Q b < Q. The intuition is as follows. Bubbles help relax credit constraints and induce rms to make more investment than in the case without bubbles. The increased capital stock in the bubbly equilibrium lowers the marginal product of capital. Since the capital price partly re ects the present value of the marginal product of capital by (15), it is lower in the bubbly steady state than in the bubbleless steady state. We can verify that R b K b > I b = K b in the bubbly steady state. By a similar discussion in Section 4, we deduce that rms without investment opportunities have enough funds to lend to rms with investment opportunities to nance investment in a neighborhood of the bubbly steady state. Do bubbles crowd out capital in the steady state? In Tirole s (1985) OLG model, households may use part of their savings to buy bubble assets instead of accumulating capital. Thus bubbles crowd out capital in the steady state. In our model, bubbles are attached to productive assets. If the capital price were the same in both bubbly and bubbleless steady states, then bubbles would induce rms to invest more and hence to accumulate more capital stock. However, there is a general equilibrium price feedback e ect as discussed earlier. The lower capital price in the bubbly steady state discourages rms to accumulate more capital stock. The net e ect is that bubbles lead to higher capital accumulation, unlike Tirole s (1985) result. Note that bubbles do not lead to e cient allocation. The capital stock in the bubbly steady state is still lower than that in the e cient allocation. How does the parameter a ect the size of bubbles? Proposition 4 shows that a smaller leads to a larger bubble relative to capital in the steady state. This is intuitive. If rms can only pledge 17

19 a smaller amount of assets, they will face a tighter collateral constraint so that a larger bubble is needed to relax this constraint. 5.2 Dynamics Now we study the stability of the bubbleless and bubbly steady states and the local dynamics around them. states. We linearize the equilibrium system (14), (15), and (20) around the two steady We then compute the eigenvalues of the linearized system and compare the number of stable eigenvalues with the number of predetermined variables. 11 The equilibrium system has only one predetermined variable (K t ) and two nonpredetermined variables (B t and Q t ): Proposition 5 Suppose that condition (30) holds. Then there exists a unique local equilibrium around the bubbly steady state (B; Q b ; K b ) and the local equilibrium around the bubbleless steady state (0; Q ; K ) has indeterminacy of degree one. We prove that there is a unique stable eigenvalue for the linearized system around the bubbly steady state. Thus there is a neighborhood N R 3 + of the bubbly steady state (B; Q b ; K b ) and a continuously di erentiable function : N! R 2 such that given any K 0 there exists a unique solution (B 0 ; Q 0 ) to the equation (B 0 ; Q 0 ; K 0 ) = 0 with (B 0 ; Q 0 ; K 0 ) 2 N ; and (B t ; Q t ; K t ) converges to (B; Q b ; K b ) starting at (B 0 ; Q 0 ; K 0 ) as t approaches in nity. The set of points (B; Q; K) satisfying the equation (B; Q; K) = 0 is a one-dimensional stable manifold of the system. If the initial value (B 0 ; Q 0 ; K 0 ) is on the stable manifold, then the solution to the nonlinear system (14), (15), and (20) is also on the stable manifold and converges to (B; Q b ; K b ) as t approaches in nity. Although the bubbleless steady state (0; Q ; K ) is also a local saddle point, the local dynamics around this steady state are di erent. In Appendix A we prove that the stable manifold for the bubbleless steady state is two dimensional because there are two stable eigenvalues for the linearized system around the bubbleless steady state. Thus the local equilibrium has indeterminacy of degree one. Formally, there is a neighborhood N R 3 + of (0; Q ; K ) and a continuously di erentiable function : N! R such that given K 0 for any B 0 > 0 there exists a unique solution Q 0 to the equation (B 0 ; Q 0 ; K 0 ) = 0 with (B 0 ; Q 0 ; K 0 ) 2 N ; and (B t ; Q t ; K t ) converges to (0; Q ; K ) starting at (B 0 ; Q 0 ; K 0 ) as t approaches in nity. Intuitively, along the two-dimensional stable manifold, the bubbly equilibrium is asymptotically bubbleless in that bubbles will burst eventually. There exist multiple bubbly equilibrium paths converging to the bubbleless steady state and the initial value B 0 > 0 is indeterminate. This feature suggests that self-ful lling beliefs can generate economic uctuations without any shocks to economic fundamentals. 11 See Theorem 6.6 in Stokey, Lucas, and Prescott (1989, pp ) for local dynamics of nonlinear systems in discrete time. See Coddington and Levinson (1955) for the analysis in continuous time. 18