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Maintenance expenditures and indeterminacy under increasing returns to scale

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  • Jang‐Ting Guo
  • Kevin J. Lansing

Abstract

This paper develops a one‐sector real business cycle model in which competitive firms allocate resources for the production of goods, investment in new capital and maintenance of existing capital. Firms also choose the utilization rate of existing capital. A higher utilization rate leads to faster capital depreciation, and an increase in maintenance activity has the opposite effect. We show that as the equilibrium ratio of maintenance expenditures to GDP rises, the required degree of increasing returns for local indeterminacy declines over a wide range of parameter combinations. When the model is calibrated to match empirical evidence on the relative size of maintenance and repair activity, we find that local indeterminacy (and belief‐driven fluctuations) can occur with a mild and empirically‐plausible degree of increasing returns: approximately 1.08.

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  • Jang‐Ting Guo & Kevin J. Lansing, 2007. "Maintenance expenditures and indeterminacy under increasing returns to scale," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 3(2), pages 147-158, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijethy:v:3:y:2007:i:2:p:147-158
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1742-7363.2007.00052.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Ludmila Fadejeva & Aleksejs Melihovs, 2010. "Measuring Total Factor Productivity and Variable Factor Utilization," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(5), pages 63-101, September.
    2. Juin-jen Chang & Chun-chieh Huang & Hsiao-wen Hung, 2011. "Monopoly Power, Increasing Returns to Variety, and Local Indeterminacy," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 384-388, April.
    3. Jiang, Dou, 2017. "Indeterminacy, capital maintenance expenditures and the business cycle," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 432-438.
    4. Jang-Ting Guo & Kevin J. Lansing, 2008. "Capital-labor substitution, equilibrium indeterminacy, and the cyclical behavior of labor income," Working Paper Series 2008-06, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    5. Busato, Francesco & Chiarini, Bruno & Marchetti, Enrico, 2011. "Indeterminacy, underground activities and tax evasion," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 831-844, May.
    6. Francesco Busato & Enrico Marchetti, 2009. "Skills, sunspots and cycles," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 97(3), pages 189-215, July.
    7. Guo, Jang-Ting & Lansing, Kevin J., 2009. "Capital-labor substitution and equilibrium indeterminacy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 1991-2000, December.
    8. Seiya Fujisaki & Kazuo Mino, 2010. "Long-Run Impacts of Inflation Tax with Endogenous Capital Depreciation," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 30(1), pages 808-816.
    9. Wang, Gaowang & Zou, Heng-fu, 2014. "Consumption externality and indeterminacy under increasing returns to scale and endogenous capital depreciation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 282-287.
    10. Chin, Chi-Ting & Guo, Jang-Ting & Lai, Ching-Chong, 2009. "Macroeconomic (in)stability under real interest rate targeting," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1631-1638, September.

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