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Aggregate Shocks or Aggregate Information? Costly Information and Business Cycle Comovement

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Author Info
Veldkamp, Laura
Wolfers, Justin

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Abstract

When similar patterns of expansion and contraction are observed across sectors, we call this a business cycle. Yet explaining the similarity and synchronization of these cycles across industries remains a puzzle. Whereas output growth across industries is highly correlated, identifiable shocks, like shocks to productivity, are far less correlated. While previous work has examined complementarities in production, we propose that sectors make similar input decisions because of complementarities in information acquisition. Because information about driving forces has a high fixed cost of production and a low marginal cost of replication, it can be more efficient for firms to share the cost of discovering common shocks than to invest in uncovering detailed sectoral information. Firms basing their decisions on this common information make highly correlated production choices. This mechanism amplifies the effects of common shocks, relative to sectoral shocks.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 5898.

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Date of creation: Oct 2006
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5898

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Related research
Keywords: business cycles; comovement puzzle; costly information; information markets;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information
E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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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. Michael J. Lamla & Sarah M. Lein & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2007. "News and Sectoral Comovement," KOF Working papers 07-183, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich. [Downloadable!]
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