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Fixed Costs: The Demise of Marginal q

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Author Info
Ricardo J. Caballero
John V. Leahy

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Abstract

The standard version of q theory, in which investment is positively related to marginal q, breaks down in the presence of fixed costs of adjustment. With fixed costs, investment is a non-monotonic function of q. Therefore its inverse, which is the traditional investment function, does not exist. Depending upon auxiliary assumptions, the correlation between investment and marginal q can be either positive or negative. Given certain homogeneity assumptions, a version of the theory based on average q still holds, although under the same assumptions profits and sales perform as well as average q. More generally, q is no longer a sufficient statistic.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 5508.

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Date of creation: Mar 1996
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5508

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E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Capital; Investment; Capacity

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  1. Flood, Robert P & Garber, Peter M, 1991. "The Linkage between Speculative Attack and Target Zone Models of Exchange Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 106(4), pages 1367-72, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Mark Doms & Timothy Dunne, 1994. "Capital Adjustment Patterns in Manufacturing Plants," Working Papers 94-11, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Abel, Andrew B & Blanchard, Olivier J, 1986. "The Present Value of Profits and Cyclical Movements in Investment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(2), pages 249-73, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Russell Cooper & John Haltiwanger & Laura Power, 1995. "Machine Replacement and the Business Cycle: Lumps and Bumps," NBER Working Papers 5260, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Nihal Bayraktar & Plutarchos Sakellaris & Philip Vermeulen, 2005. "Real versus financial frictions to capital investment," Working Paper Series 566, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  2. Héctor Felipe Bravo & Jorge Enrique Restrepo, 2002. "Funciones Agregadas de Inversión para la Economía Chilena," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 158, Central Bank of Chile. [Downloadable!]
  3. Sangeeta Pratap, 2000. "Do Adjustment Costs Explain Investment-Cash Flow Insensitivity?," Computing in Economics and Finance 2000 315, Society for Computational Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Russell Cooper & Joao Ejarque, 2000. "Exhuming Q: Market Power vs. Capital Market Imperfections," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0528, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Andrea Caggese, 2003. "Testing Financing Constraints on Firm Investment using Variable Capital," Economics Working Papers 1009, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Aug 2006. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Murillo Campello & John Graham, 2007. "Do Stock Prices Influence Corporate Decisions? Evidence from the Technology Bubble," NBER Working Papers 13640, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Carl Chiarella & Peter Flaschel & Reiner Franke & Willi Semmler, 2002. "Stability Analysis of a High-Dimensional Macrodynamic Model of Real-Financial Interaction: A Cascade of Matrices Approach," Working Paper Series 123, School of Finance and Economics, University of Technology, Sydney. [Downloadable!]
  8. Nick Bloom & John Van Reenen & Stephen Bond, 2006. "Uncertainty and Investment Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 12383, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Ricardo J. Caballero, 1997. "Aggregate Investment," NBER Working Papers 6264, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Nick Bloom, 2006. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks: Firm Level Estimation and a 9/11 Simulation," CEP Discussion Papers dp0718, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  11. Katharina Raabe & Ivo Arnold & Clemens Kool, 2006. "Firm Size and Monetary Policy Transmission: A Theoretical Model on the Role of Capital Investment Expenditures," Working Papers 06-14, Utrecht School of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  12. Luis H.R. Alvarez E., 2006. "Irreversible Investment, Incremental Capital Accumulation, and Price Uncertainty," Discussion Papers 4, Aboa Centre for Economics. [Downloadable!]
  13. Joao F. Gomes, 2001. "Financing Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1263-1285, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Jason G. Cummins & Kevin A. Hassett & Stephen D. Oliner, 1999. "Investment behavior, observable expectations, and internal funds," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1999-27, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  15. Nicholas Bloom, 2007. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," NBER Working Papers 13385, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Julia K. Thomas, 2002. "Is lumpy investment relevant for the business cycle?," Staff Report 302, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  17. Carl Chiarella & Peter Flaschel & Reiner Franke & Willi Semmler, 2001. "Real-Financial Interaction: Integrating Supply Side Wage-Price Dynamics and the Stock Market," Working Paper Series 112, School of Finance and Economics, University of Technology, Sydney. [Downloadable!]
  18. Julian Fennema, 2006. "An Alternative Estimation Framework for Firm-Level Capital Investment," CERT Discussion Papers 0602, Centre for Economic Reform and Transformation, Heriot Watt University. [Downloadable!]
  19. Oivind Anti Nilsen & Fabio Schiantarelli, 1996. "Zeroes and Lumps in Investment: Empirical Evidence on Irreversibilities and Non-Convexities," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 337., Boston College Department of Economics, revised 01 Nov 2000. [Downloadable!]
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  20. Juan Pablo Medina & Rodrigo Valdés, 1998. "Liquidez y Decisiones de Inversión en Chile: Evidencia de Sociedades Anónimas," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 25, Central Bank of Chile. [Downloadable!]
  21. Austan Goolsbee & David B. Gross, 1997. "Estimating Adjustment Costs with Data on Heterogeneous Capital Goods," NBER Working Papers 6342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Douglas Dwyer, 1998. "Technology Locks, Creative Destruction, and Non-Convergence in Productivity Levels," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(2), pages 430-473, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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