The equity price channel in a New-Keynesian DSGE model with financial frictions and banking

This paper studies the role of the equity price channel in business cycle fluctuations, and highlights the equity price channel as a different aspect to general equilibrium models with financial frictions and, as a result, emphasizes the systemic influence of financial markets on the real economy. We develop a canonical dynamic general equilibrium model with a tractable role for the equity market in banking, entrepreneur and household economic activities. The model is estimated with Bayesian techniques using U.S. data over the sample period 1982Q01–2015Q01. We show that a dynamic general equilibrium model with an equity price channel well mimics the U.S. business cycle. The model reproduces the strong procyclicality of the equity price. The equity price channel significantly exacerbates business cycle fluctuations through both financial accelerator and bank capital channels. Our results support the increasing emphasis on common equity capital in Basel III regulations. This is beneficial in terms of financial stability, but amplifies and propagates shocks to the real economy. •Equity price channel amplifies and propagates shocks to the real economy.•Equity plays a significant role in amplifying the financial accelerator effect.•Equity price channel weakens the counter-cyclicality of bank capital–asset ratios.•Equity price channel exacerbates the economic meltdown during the Great Recession.