Chapter 9Credit Market Imperfections: Credit Frictions,Financial Crises and Social SecurityTextbook Question SolutionsQuestions for Review1. Borrowers face higher interest rates than lenders.2. The Ricardian equivalence does not hold. Credit constraint household will not save at least part of thetax cut an consume it.3. Yes, there is room for government intervention, in the form of social security or by holding positivepublic debt.4. Asymmetric information and limited commitment.5. The default premium can increase if more consumers are likely to default.6. As consumers face a higher interest rate when borrowing, they borrow less and thus consume lesstoday.7. Such a borrower must reduce the size of her loan, and thus her consumption. She may also want todefault, thereby increasing the default premium and the interest rate of other borrowers, who also reduce their consumption.8. Pay-as-you-go Social Security always improves the welfare of the first generation to receive benefits.Later generations only see a welfare improvement if the population growth rate exceeds the real rate of interest.9. Fully funded Social Security has no effects as long as taxes collected are less than the optimal amountof saving. If taxes and benefits are larger, then individuals consume less when working and more when retired relative to what they would prefer.10. The government cannot commit not to take care of destitute senior citizens. This leads to an incentivenot to save, at least for the poor. With social security, there should be no destitute senior citizens, and the aggregate savings rate is higher as everyone saves optimally for retirement.Problems1. (a) The government intertemporal budget constraint is, assuming both t and t′ are positive:84 Williamson • Macroeconomics, Fourth Edition 1(1)0(1)bt b at r ′+−=+ (b) We are in a situation where asymmetric information becomes important: the government doesnot know who will be able to pay the future taxes. The relevant interest rate is the onecorresponding to the steeper part of the budget constraint, and the new endowment thus movesthe flatter part down. Consumption choices of the first period consumers are thus impactedthrough a negative income shock, as they have to pay more taxes to compensate for more unpaidtaxes in the future.(c) The Ricardian equivalence does not apply as the change in timing of taxes has changed someconsumption patterns. Indeed, households cannot fully adjust their savings, thus any change inperiodic disposable income has an impact at least for some households.2. (a) The government can only tax in the second period as much as it could get from the collateral:t ′ ≤ pH(b) Now that the government has priority on the collateral, the new collateral constraint is:−s (1 + r ) ≤ pH − t ′which implies(1)/(1)y t pH c r t r −+≤′+−+ (c) As we see from the new collateral constraint, Ricardian equivalence holds, as any shifting oftaxes across periods does not affect the constraint. The consumer makes the same consumptionchoice.3. (a) The bank will be lending so that it will be able to get the loan back in expectation. Thus, the newcollateral constraint isChapter 9 Credit Market Imperfections: Credit Frictions, Financial Crises and Social Security 85−s (1 + r ) ≤ a pHwhich leads to .(1)y t a pH c r −+≤+ This is much like Figure 9.5 in the textbook, simply with a lower collateral value.(b) If the collateral is more likely to be of no value, banks will lend less. Thus, some household willnot be able to borrow as much as they could before, leading for them and in aggregate to areduction of current consumption and an increase in future consumption. Thus we have exactlythe same impact as if we had a reduction in p , as in Figure 9.5 of the textbook.4. Social Security.(a) When the program is first instituted, the current old receive b in benefits and pay nothing.The effect on the current old is as in Figure 9.8 in the text. The current young receive b inbenefits when they are old. This effect is also captured by the shift from BA to FD in thetext’s Figure 9.8. The current young also lend bN to the government in period T and receive(1)r bN + in principal and interest when they are old. In per capita terms, these amounts are/(1)/(1)bN n N b n +=+ and (1)/(1)(1)/(1)r bN n N r b n ++=++ respectively. However, thisborrowing and lending are represented in Figure 9.8 as movements along the budget line.Unless there is a change in the real interest rate, there is no additional shift in the budget line.Therefore, both these generations unambiguously benefit from the program.(b) Once the program is running, it is identical to the pay-as-you-go system in the text. This programbenefits a typical cohort as long as n > r , as is depicted in textbook Figure 9.9. A specialcircumstance applies to the cohort born in period T + 1. These individuals each receive a benefit per capita of b /(1 + r ) in present value terms. However, they pay taxes to support two generations’worth of benefits. They pay taxes to retire the principal and interest on debt incurred in period T . The per capita share of principal and interest on their grandparents’ benefits is equal to(1 + r )b /(1 + n )2. The per capita share of their parents’ benefits is equal to b /(1 + n ). This generation can only benefit if:22(1)(1)1(1)(1)r r n n ++>+++ This requirement is obviously more stringent than .n r >5. Under this regime, disposable income for the young is y , but the price of current consumption is(1 + s ). This implies that the intertemporal budget constraint of the household is now(1)(1)(1)(1)s c c y y b r r r ′′+++=++++ In equibrium, it must be that sc (1 + n ) = b . Thus whether there is going to be a positive income effectis going to depend on n is larger than r . But the is also a substitution effect coming from the change in relative price between c and c ′. This substitution effect has no impact on welfare, though.86 Williamson • Macroeconomics, Fourth Edition6. (a) Consumers born in T are the first ones not to get benefits. The government finances the benefitsof the last generation, bN, with bonds D T. Thus each consumer born in T buys D T/N′ bonds, orb/(1 + n) each. In T +1, the government has to reimburse principal and interest, (1 +r)D T, thuseach old consumer at that time obtains (1 +r)b/(1 +n). This means that for the intertemporalbudget constraint in the figure below, the endowment point is shifted b/(1 + n) to the left and(1 +r)b/(1 +I) up. This is on the same budget constraint as before. However, this household isalso losing the old-age benefits it was expecting, thus the new endowment point shifts anadditional b down. However, this generation does not have to pay, when young, for the benefitsof the previous generation, as they are covered by the debt. Thus, the endowment point shiftsb/(1 +n) to the right. As r> n, the new endowment point is now to the right of the old budgetconstraint, see the figure below, and this household is better of. Essentially, it just the opposite of the situation that made it viable to institute a pay-as-you-go system when n > r. The exact samereasoning applies to all future generations.。