Investment of U.S. firms responds asymmetrically to Tobin's Q: Investment of established firms -- `intensive' investment -- reacts negatively to Q whereas investment of new firms -- `extensive' investment -- responds positively and elastically to Q. This asymmetry, we argue, reflects a difference between established and new firms in the cost of adopting new technologies. A fall in the compatibility of new capital with old capital raises measured Q and reduces the incentive of established firms to invest. New firms do not face such compatibility costs and step up their investment in response to the rise in Q. A composite-capital version of the model fits the data well using aggregates since 1900 and our new database of firm-level Qs that extend back to 1920.
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Paper provided by Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University in its series Working Papers with number
0912.
Find related papers by JEL classification: E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles N1 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Growth and Fluctuations O3 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Technological Change
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Boyan Jovanovic & Peter L. Rousseau, 2001.
"Vintage Organization Capital,"
NBER Working Papers
8166, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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