IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmic/v12y2020i4p1-44.html

Demand Volatility, Adjustment Costs, and Productivity: An Examination of Capacity Utilization in Hotels and Airlines

Author

Listed:
  • R. Andrew Butters

Abstract

Measures of productivity reveal large differences across producers even within narrowly defined industries. Traditional measures of productivity, however, will associate differences in demand volatility to differences in productivity when adjusting factors of production is costly. I document this effect by comparing the influence of demand volatility on capacity utilization in a high (hotels) and low (airlines) adjustment cost industry. Differences in annual demand volatility explain a large share of the variation in occupancy rates of hotels at the metro area-segment-year level. In contrast, differences in annual demand volatility have no effect on load factors of airlines at the destination-airline-year level.

Suggested Citation

  • R. Andrew Butters, 2020. "Demand Volatility, Adjustment Costs, and Productivity: An Examination of Capacity Utilization in Hotels and Airlines," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1-44, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:12:y:2020:i:4:p:1-44
    DOI: 10.1257/mic.20170056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20170056
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E125241V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20170056.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mic.20170056.ds
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/mic.20170056?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Morrison, Catherine J., 1986. "Productivity measurement with non-static expectations and varying capacity utilization : An integrated approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1-2), pages 51-74.
    2. Van Biesebroeck, Johannes, 2008. "The Sensitivity of Productivity Estimates," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 311-328.
    3. Baker, Laurence C. & Phibbs, Ciaran S. & Guarino, Cassandra & Supina, Dylan & Reynolds, James L., 2004. "Within-year variation in hospital utilization and its implications for hospital costs," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 191-211, January.
    4. Thomas N. Hubbard, 2003. "Information, Decisions, and Productivity: On-Board Computers and Capacity Utilization in Trucking," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1328-1353, September.
    5. Klette, Tor Jakob & Griliches, Zvi, 1996. "The Inconsistency of Common Scale Estimators When Output Prices Are Unobserved and Endogenous," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(4), pages 343-361, July-Aug..
    6. Nicholas Bloom & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2012. "Americans Do IT Better: US Multinationals and the Productivity Miracle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 167-201, February.
    7. Kerwin Kofi Charles & Erik Hurst & Matthew J Notowidigdo, 2019. "Housing Booms, Manufacturing Decline and Labour Market Outcomes," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(617), pages 209-248.
    8. Timothy J. Bartik, 1991. "Who Benefits from State and Local Economic Development Policies?," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number wbsle.
    9. Friedman, Bernard & Pauly, Mark, 1981. "Cost Functions for a Service Firm with Variable Quality and Stochastic Demand: The Case of Hospitals," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 63(4), pages 620-624, November.
    10. Robert Gibbons & John Roberts, 2012. "The Handbook of Organizational Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 9889.
    11. Jan De Loecker, 2011. "Product Differentiation, Multiproduct Firms, and Estimating the Impact of Trade Liberalization on Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1407-1451, September.
    12. Amit Gandhi & Salvador Navarro & David Rivers, 2011. "On the Identification of Production Functions: How Heterogeneous is Productivity?," University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP) Working Papers 20119, University of Western Ontario, Centre for Human Capital and Productivity (CHCP).
    13. James Levinsohn & Amil Petrin, 2003. "Estimating Production Functions Using Inputs to Control for Unobservables," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 317-341.
    14. Christopher R. Knittel, 2002. "Alternative Regulatory Methods And Firm Efficiency: Stochastic Frontier Evidence From The U.S. Electricity Industry," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(3), pages 530-540, August.
    15. Charles F. Manski & Elie Tamer, 2002. "Inference on Regressions with Interval Data on a Regressor or Outcome," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 519-546, March.
    16. Allan Collard-Wexler Jr., 2014. "Mergers and Sunk Costs: An Application to the Ready-Mix Concrete Industry," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 407-447, November.
    17. Tor Jakob Klette, 1999. "Market Power, Scale Economies and Productivity: Estimates from a Panel of Establishment Data," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 451-476, December.
    18. Taylor, Alan M, 2001. "Potential Pitfalls for the Purchasing-Power-Parity Puzzle? Sampling and Specification Biases in Mean-Reversion Tests of the Law of One Price," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(2), pages 473-498, March.
    19. Matthew Backus, 2020. "Why Is Productivity Correlated With Competition?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2415-2444, November.
    20. Lucia Foster & John Haltiwanger & Chad Syverson, 2008. "Reallocation, Firm Turnover, and Efficiency: Selection on Productivity or Profitability?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 394-425, March.
    21. Jacques Mairesse & Zvi Griliches, 1988. "Heterogeneity in Panel Data: Are There Stable Production Functions?," NBER Working Papers 2619, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Kira R. Fabrizio & Nancy L. Rose & Catherine D. Wolfram, 2007. "Do Markets Reduce Costs? Assessing the Impact of Regulatory Restructuring on US Electric Generation Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1250-1277, September.
    23. Gaynor, Martin & Anderson, Gerard F., 1995. "Uncertain demand, the structure of hospital costs, and the cost of empty hospital beds," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 291-317, August.
    24. Hulten, Charles R., 1986. "Productivity change, capacity utilization, and the sources of efficiency growth," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1-2), pages 31-50.
    25. Serguey Braguinsky & Atsushi Ohyama & Tetsuji Okazaki & Chad Syverson, 2015. "Acquisitions, Productivity, and Profitability: Evidence from the Japanese Cotton Spinning Industry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(7), pages 2086-2119, July.
    26. Berndt, Ernst R & Morrison, Catherine J, 1981. "Capacity Utilization Measures: Underlying Economic Theory and an Alternative Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 48-52, May.
    27. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1351-1408.
    28. Robert Gibbons & Rebecca Henderson, 2012. "What Do Managers Do? [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    29. Berndt, Ernst R. & Fuss, Melvyn A., 1986. "Productivity measurement with adjustments for variations in capacity utilization and other forms of temporary equilibrium," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1-2), pages 7-29.
    30. Chad Syverson, 2011. "What Determines Productivity?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 326-365, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joao R. Faria & Rajeev K. Goel & Michael A. Nelson, 2024. "Does capacity utilization crowd‐out research activity? Cross‐national evidence from firm‐level data," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 45(1), pages 161-173, January.
    2. Siavash Mohades & Giulia Piccillo & Maria Savona & Tania Treibich, 2025. "Firms’ Investment and Capacity Utilisation: The Role of Financial Constraints and Uncertainty," CESifo Working Paper Series 12108, CESifo.
    3. Brave, Scott A. & Butters, R. Andrew & Fogarty, Michael, 2022. "The perils of working with big data, and a SMALL checklist you can use to recognize them," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 481-492.
    4. Silke J. Forbes & Renáta Kosová, 2023. "Does Competition Benefit Complements? Evidence from Airlines and Hotels," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(8), pages 4733-4752, August.
    5. Alex Coad & Clemens Domnick & Florian Flachenecker & Peter Harasztosi & Mario Lorenzo Janiri & Rozalia Pal & Mercedes Teruel, 2022. "Capacity constraints as a trigger for high growth," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 893-923, October.
    6. Fecri Karanki, 2023. "The impact of airline business models on excess capacity," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(6), pages 3556-3571, September.
    7. Veronica Leoni & David Boto-García, 2023. "The Effect of Natural Disasters on Hotel Demand, Supply and Labour Markets: Evidence from the La Palma Volcano Eruption," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 86(4), pages 755-780, December.
    8. Alex Coad, 2022. "Lumps, Bumps and Jumps in the Firm Growth Process," Foundations and Trends(R) in Entrepreneurship, now publishers, vol. 18(4), pages 212-267, April.

    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. Chad Syverson, 2011. "What Determines Productivity?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(2), pages 326-365, June.
    2. Andrea Pozzi & Fabiano Schivardi, 2016. "Demand or productivity: what determines firm growth?," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(3), pages 608-630, August.
    3. Zeng, Shuwei & Gould, Brian & Thorne, Fiona & Laepple, Doris, "undated". "EU Milk Quota Elimination: Has the Productivity of Irish Dairy Farms Been Impacted?," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 261218, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Francesco Manaresi & Nicola Pierri, 2018. "Credit supply and productivity growth," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1168, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    5. Francesco Manaresi & Nicola Pierri, 2018. "Credit supply and productivity growth," BIS Working Papers 711, Bank for International Settlements.
    6. Francesco Manaresi & Mr. Nicola Pierri, 2019. "Credit Supply and Productivity Growth," IMF Working Papers 2019/107, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Emanuele Forlani & Ralf Martin & Giordano Mion & Mirabelle Muûls, 2023. "Unraveling Firms: Demand, Productivity and Markups Heterogeneity," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(654), pages 2251-2302.
    8. Alessandro Borin & Michele Mancini, 2016. "Foreign direct investment and firm performance: an empirical analysis of Italian firms," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 152(4), pages 705-732, November.
    9. Frank Nagle, 2019. "Open Source Software and Firm Productivity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(3), pages 1191-1215, March.
    10. Maican, Florin & Orth, Matilda, 2015. "A dynamic analysis of entry regulations and productivity in retail trade," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 67-80.
    11. G. Jacob Blackwood & Lucia S. Foster & Cheryl A. Grim & John Haltiwanger & Zoltan Wolf, 2021. "Macro and Micro Dynamics of Productivity: From Devilish Details to Insights," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 142-172, July.
    12. di Mauro, Filippo & Mion, Giordano & Stöhlker, Daniel, 2017. "The drivers of revenue productivity: a new decomposition analysis with firm-level data," Working Paper Series 2014, European Central Bank.
    13. Zach Flynn, 2020. "Identifying productivity when it is a factor of production," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 51(2), pages 496-530, June.
    14. Van Reenen, John & Bloom, Nicholas & Brynjolfsson, Erik & Saporta-Eksten, Itay & Foster, Lucia & Patnaik, Megha & Jarmin, Ron, 2014. "IT and Management in America," CEPR Discussion Papers 9886, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Maican, Florin & Orth, Matilda, 2021. "Determinants of economies of scope in retail," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    16. Laura Alfaro & Maggie X. Chen, 2013. "Market Reallocation and Knowledge Spillover: The Gains from Multinational Production," Working Papers 2013-17, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    17. Lutz, Benjamin Johannes, 2016. "Emissions trading and productivity: Firm-level evidence from German manufacturing," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-067, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    18. Erik Brynjolfsson & Wang Jin & Kristina McElheran, 2021. "The power of prediction: predictive analytics, workplace complements, and business performance," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 56(4), pages 217-239, October.
    19. repec:osf:socarx:bwxfz_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Alexander S. Kritikos & Alexander Schiersch & Caroline Stiel, 2021. "The Productivity Puzzle in Business Services," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1960, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    21. Amoroso, S., 2013. "Heterogeneity of innovative, collaborative, and productive firm-level processes," Other publications TiSEM f5784a49-7053-401d-855d-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism
    • L93 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Air Transportation

    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:aejmic:v:12:y:2020:i:4:p:1-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.