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Declining Volatility in the U.S. Automobile Industry

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Author Info
Valerie A. Ramey
Daniel J. Vine

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Abstract

Dramatic changes in the volatility of output occurred in the U.S. auto industry in the early 1980s. Namely, output volatility declined, the covariance of inventory investment and sales grew more negative, and adjustments to production schedules, which in earlier decades stemmed primarily from plants hiring and laying off workers, were more often accomplished with changes in average hours per worker after the mid- 1980s. Using a linear quadratic inventory model with intensive and extensive labor adjustments, we show how all of these changes could have stemmed from one underlying factor?a decline in the persistence of motor vehicle sales. (JEL G31, L25, L62, M11)

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Publisher Info
Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 96 (2006)
Issue (Month): 5 (December)
Pages: 1876-1889
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Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:96:y:2006:i:5:p:1876-1889

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1983. "The Production and Inventory Behavior of the American Automobile Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 365-400, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Aizcorbe, Ana M, 1992. "Procyclical Labour Productivity, Increasing Returns to Labour and Labour Hoarding in Car Assembly Plant Employment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 102(413), pages 860-73, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "Has The U.S. Economy Become More Stable? A Bayesian Approach Based On A Markov-Switching Model Of The Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 608-616, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Bresnahan, Timothy F & Ramey, Valerie A, 1994. "Output Fluctuations at the Plant Level," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(3), pages 593-624, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Ramey, Valerie A. & West, Kenneth D., 1999. "Inventories," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 863-923 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
    • Valerie A. Ramey & Kenneth D. West, 1997. "Inventories," NBER Working Papers 6315, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Hall, George J., 2000. "Non-convex costs and capital utilization: A study of production scheduling at automobile assembly plants," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 681-716, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. James A. Kahn & Margaret M. McConnell & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2002. "On the causes of the increased stability of the U.S. economy," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue May, pages 183-202. [Downloadable!]
  8. Valerie A. Ramey & Daniel J. Vine, 2004. "Tracking the Source of the Decline in GDP Volatility: An Analysis of the Automobile Industry," NBER Working Papers 10384, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Owen Irvine & Scott Schuh, 2007. "The roles of comovement and inventory investment in the reduction of output volatility," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov. [Downloadable!]
  2. Alejandro Justiniano & Northwestern University, 2006. "The Time Varying Volatility of Macroeconomic Fluctuations," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 219, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. BenoƮt Mojon, 2007. "Monetary policy, output composition and the Great Moderation," Working Paper Series WP-07-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
  4. Alejandro Justiniano & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2006. "The Time Varying Volatility of Macroeconomic Fluctuations," NBER Working Papers 12022, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Nir Jaimovich & Henry E. Siu, 2007. "The young, the old, and the restless: demographics and business cycle volatility," Staff Report 387, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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