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Fixed Costs: The Demise of Marginal q

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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)
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  2. Gilchrist, S. & Himmelberg, C.P., 1995. "Evidence on the Role of Cash Flow for Investment," Papers 95-29, Columbia - Graduate School of Business.
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  3. 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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  4. 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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  5. 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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  6. Hayashi, Fumio, 1982. "Tobin's Marginal q and Average q: A Neoclassical Interpretation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 213-24, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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