IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v91y2001i5p1203-1220.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Information-Technology Revolution and the Stock Market: Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Bart Hobijn
  • Boyan Jovanovic

Abstract

Why did the stock market decline so much in the early 1970s and remain low until the early 1980s? We argue that it was because information technology arrived on the scene and the stock-market incumbents of the day were not ready to implement it. Instead, new firms would bring in the new technology after the mid-1980s. Investors foresaw this in the early 1970s and stock prices fell right away. In our model, new capital destroys old capital, but with a lag. The prospect of this causes the value of the old capital to fall right away.

Suggested Citation

  • Bart Hobijn & Boyan Jovanovic, 2001. "The Information-Technology Revolution and the Stock Market: Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1203-1220, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:91:y:2001:i:5:p:1203-1220
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.91.5.1203
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.91.5.1203
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reinganum, Jennifer F, 1983. "Uncertain Innovation and the Persistence of Monopoly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(4), pages 741-748, September.
    2. Robert E. Hall, 2001. "The Stock Market and Capital Accumulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1185-1202, December.
    3. Ben R. Craig & Joseph G. Haubrich, 2013. "Gross Loan Flows," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(2-3), pages 401-421, March.
    4. John Haltiwanger & Scott Schuh, 1999. "Gross job flows between plants and industries," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Mar, pages 41-64.
    5. Greenwood, Jeremy & Yorukoglu, Mehmet, 1997. "1974," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 49-95, June.
      • Greenwood, J. & Yorukoglu, M., 1996. "1974," RCER Working Papers 429, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
    6. Jovanovic, Boyan & Rob, Rafael, 1990. "Long Waves and Short Waves: Growth through Intensive and Extensive Search," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(6), pages 1391-1409, November.
    7. Chao Wei, 2003. "Energy, the Stock Market, and the Putty-Clay Investment Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 311-323, March.
    8. Masako Ueda, 1997. "Expertise and finance: Mergers motivated by technological change," Economics Working Papers 253, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    9. Ritter, Jay R, 1991. "The Long-run Performance of Initial Public Offerings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(1), pages 3-27, March.
    10. Takii, Katsuya, 2000. "Prediction ability and investment under uncertainty," Economics Discussion Papers 9991, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    11. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1981. "The Allocational Role of Takeover Bids in Situations of Asymmetric Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(2), pages 253-270, May.
    12. Randall Morck & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1988. "Characteristics of Targets of Hostile and Friendly Takeovers," NBER Chapters, in: Corporate Takeovers: Causes and Consequences, pages 101-136, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Jonathan A. Parker, 2000. "Spendthrift in America? On Two Decades of Decline in the US Saving Rate," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1999, Volume 14, pages 317-387, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Joseph Zeira, 2000. "Informational overshooting, booms and crashes," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Apr.
    15. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1978. "Asset Prices in an Exchange Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1429-1445, November.
    16. Roger G. Ibbotson & Jody L. Sindelar & Jay R Ritter, 1994. "The Market'S Problems With The Pricing Of Initial Public Offerings," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 7(1), pages 66-74, March.
    17. Michael Gort, 1969. "An Economic Disturbance Theory of Mergers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 83(4), pages 624-642.
    18. Pindyck, Robert S, 1984. "Risk, Inflation, and the Stock Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 335-351, June.
    19. Boyan Jovanovic & Jeremy Greenwood, 1999. "The Information-Technology Revolution and the Stock Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 116-122, May.
    20. Frank R. Lichtenberg & Donald Siegel, 1987. "Productivity and Changes in Ownership of Manufactoring Plants," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 18(3, Specia), pages 643-684.
    21. Holmes, Thomas J & Schmitz, James A, Jr, 1990. "A Theory of Entrepreneurship and Its Application to the Study of Business Transfers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 265-294, April.
    22. Andrew Atkeson & Patrick Kehoe, 1997. "Industry Evolution and Transition: A Neoclassical Benchmark," NBER Working Papers 6005, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1988. "Value Maximization and the Acquisition Process," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 7-20, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Boyan Jovanovic & Peter L. Rousseau, 2000. "Vintage organization capital," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Apr.
    2. Boldrin, Michele & Levine, David K., 2001. "Growth Cycles and Market Crashes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 96(1-2), pages 13-39, January.
    3. Adrian Peralta-Alva, 2007. "THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION AND THE PUZZLING TRENDS IN TOBIN'S AVERAGE "q"," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(3), pages 929-951, August.
    4. Jovanovic, Boyan & Rousseau, Peter L., 2005. "General Purpose Technologies," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 1181-1224, Elsevier.
    5. Faria, Andre L., 2008. "Mergers and the market for organization capital," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 138(1), pages 71-100, January.
    6. Sami Alpanda & Adrian Peralta-Alva, 2010. "Oil Crisis, Energy-Saving Technological Change and the Stock Market Crash of 1973-74," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(4), pages 824-842, October.
    7. Boyan Jovanovic & Peter L. Rousseau, 2001. "Mergers and Technological Change: 1885-1998," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0116, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    8. Adrian Peralta Alva & Sami Alpanda, 2003. "Oil crisis, Energy Saving Technological Change, and the Stock Market Collapse of 1974," Macroeconomics 0307007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Anderson, Keith & Brooks, Chris & Katsaris, Apostolos, 2010. "Speculative bubbles in the S&P 500: Was the tech bubble confined to the tech sector?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 345-361, June.
    10. Christophe Boucher, 2003. "Stock Market Valuation : the Role of the Macroeconomic Risk Premium," Finance 0305011, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. John Laitner & Dmitriy Stolyarov, 2003. "Technological Change and the Stock Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1240-1267, September.
    12. Boyan Jovanovic & Peter L. Rousseau, 2014. "Extensive and Intensive Investment over the Business Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(4), pages 863-908.
    13. Martynova, M. & Renneboog, L.D.R., 2005. "Takeover Waves : Triggers, Performance and Motives," Discussion Paper 2005-029, Tilburg University, Tilburg Law and Economic Center.
    14. Luigi Bocola & Nils M. Gornemann, 2013. "Risk, economic growth and the value of U.S. corporations," Working Papers 13-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    15. Kevin J. Lansing, 2008. "Speculative growth and overreaction to technology shocks," Working Paper Series 2008-08, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    16. Martynova, M., 2006. "The market for corporate control and corporate governance regulation in Europe," Other publications TiSEM 8651e281-4914-41f2-ac14-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    17. Jonathan Temple, 2002. "The Assessment: The New Economy," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(3), pages 241-264.
    18. Calvet, Laurent E. & Fisher, Adlai J., 2007. "Multifrequency news and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 178-212, October.
    19. Edgar Ghossoub, 2009. "Technological Diffusion and Asset Prices," Working Papers 0002, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    20. Malcolm Baker & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2006. "Investor Sentiment and the Cross‐Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1645-1680, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:91:y:2001:i:5:p:1203-1220. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.