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Intermediate Goods and Business Cycles: Implications for Productivity and Welfare

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  • Basu, Susanto

Abstract

This paper presents an aggregate demand-driven model of business cycles that provides a new explanation for the procyclicality of productivity and simultaneously predicts large welfare losses from monetary nonneutrality. The key features of the model are an input-output production structure; imperfect competition; countercyclical markups; and, for some results, state-dependent price rigidity. True technical efficiency is procyclical even though production takes place with constant returns, without technology shocks or technological externalities. The paper has observable implications that distinguish it empirically from related work. These implications are generally supported by data from U.S. manufacturing industries. Copyright 1995 by American Economic Association.

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  • Basu, Susanto, 1995. "Intermediate Goods and Business Cycles: Implications for Productivity and Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 512-531, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:85:y:1995:i:3:p:512-31
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production

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