Can Intangible Capital Explain Cyclical Movements in the Labor Wedge?
Intangible capital is an important factor of production in modern economies that is generally neglected in business cycle analyses. We demonstrate that intangible capital can have a substantial impact on business cycle dynamics, especially if the intangible is complementary with production capacity. We focus on customer capital: the capital embodied in the relationships a firm has with its customers. Introducing customer capital into a standard real business cycle model generates a volatile and countercyclical labor wedge, due to a mismeasured marginal product of labor. We also provide new evidence on cyclical variation in selling effort to discipline the exercise.
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Volume (Year): 104 (2014)
Issue (Month): 5 (May)
Pages: 183-188
| Handle: | RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:104:y:2014:i:5:p:183-88 |
| Note: | DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.5.183 |
| Contact details of provider: | Web page: https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/ Email: More information through EDIRC
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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.:
- Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2010.
"Unmeasured Investment and the Puzzling US Boom in the 1990s,"
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics,
American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 88-123, October.
- Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2007. "Unmeasured Investment and the Puzzling U.S. Boom in the 1990s," NBER Working Papers 13499, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2009. "Unmeasured investment and the puzzling U.S. boom in the 1990s," Staff Report 369, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
- Hall, Robert E, 1997. "Macroeconomic Fluctuations and the Allocation of Time," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(1), pages 223-250, January.
- Robert E. Hall, 1997. "Macroeconomic Fluctuations and the Allocation of Time," NBER Working Papers 5933, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Robert Shimer, 2009. "Convergence in Macroeconomics: The Labor Wedge," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 280-297, January. Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)
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