Trend shocks and sudden stops

Abstract

Sudden Stops are characterized by large output drops, current account reversals and real exchange rate depreci-ation followed by a slow recovery, a pattern that has proven to be hard to capture with standard open economymodels. This paper extends the standard models with endogenous collateral constraints to include permanentincome (trend) shocks and studies the optimal policy design in this setting. Wefind that shocks to the trendplay an important role in generating a Sudden Stop followed by a slow recovery, a result that is also supportedby the data. With trend and transitory shocks, optimal capital control policy is procyclical, although less sothan under transitory shocks only.