IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/proeco/v135y2012i2p964-976.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

German inventory to sales ratios 1971–2005—An empirical analysis of business practice

Author

Listed:
  • Obermaier, Robert

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to test empirically for the first time the general hypothesis that inventory to sales ratios have decreased over time in the German economy. Although inventory reduction has been a prevalent topic in the production and operations management literature, there is a lack of empirically confirmed answers to questions. They are as follows: Have inventories in German firms decreased overall during the past decades? What sectors of German industry are leading (lagging behind) inventory reduction? Has inventory reduction developed differently for raw materials, work-in-process, or finished goods? In which periods was marginal inventory reduction greatest? To the best of our knowledge, this empirical study is the first to broadly investigate inventory development from the 1970s until the present for a major European economy, Germany, and will provide the first answers to the research questions stated above using aggregate industry-level data provided by the Deutsche Bundesbank. We show that inventory levels decreased overall in many sectors of German industry. This reduction was mainly marked for raw materials and finished goods, particularly for the second-half of the time frame investigated.

Suggested Citation

  • Obermaier, Robert, 2012. "German inventory to sales ratios 1971–2005—An empirical analysis of business practice," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(2), pages 964-976.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:135:y:2012:i:2:p:964-976
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpe.2011.11.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925527311004762
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijpe.2011.11.013?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
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harvey M. Wagner, 2002. "And Then There Were None," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 50(1), pages 217-226, February.
    2. Hau L. Lee & Kut C. So & Christopher S. Tang, 2000. "The Value of Information Sharing in a Two-Level Supply Chain," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(5), pages 626-643, May.
    3. Knetsch, Thomas A., 2004. "The Inventory Cycle of the German Economy," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2004,09, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    4. Hirsch, Albert A., 1996. "Has inventory management in the US become more efficient and flexible? A macroeconomic perspective," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1-3), pages 37-46, August.
    5. Alan S. Blinder & Louis J. Maccini, 1991. "Taking Stock: A Critical Assessment of Recent Research on Inventories," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 73-96, Winter.
    6. Chikán, Attila & Kovács, Erzsébet & Matyusz, Zsolt, 2011. "Inventory investment and sectoral characteristics in some OECD countries," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 2-11, September.
    7. Vishal Gaur & Marshall L. Fisher & Ananth Raman, 2005. "An Econometric Analysis of Inventory Turnover Performance in Retail Services," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(2), pages 181-194, February.
    8. Gérard P. Cachon & Marcelo Olivares, 2010. "Drivers of Finished-Goods Inventory in the U.S. Automobile Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(1), pages 202-216, January.
    9. Andrew C. Harvey, 1990. "The Econometric Analysis of Time Series, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 026208189x, December.
    10. G J Hahn & H Kuhn, 2011. "Optimising a value-based performance indicator in mid-term sales and operations planning," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 62(3), pages 515-525, March.
    11. Irvine, F. Owen, 2005. "Trend breaks in US inventory to sales ratios," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 13-23, January.
    12. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119, Decembrie.
    13. Gérard P. Cachon & Taylor Randall & Glen M. Schmidt, 2007. "In Search of the Bullwhip Effect," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 9(4), pages 457-479, April.
    14. Julio J. Rotemberg & Garth Saloner, 1989. "The Cyclical Behavior of Strategic Inventories," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(1), pages 73-97.
    15. Willard I. Zangwill, 1992. "The Limits of Japanese Production Theory," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 14-25, October.
    16. Cesaroni, Tatiana & Maccini, Louis & Malgarini, Marco, 2011. "Business cycle stylized facts and inventory behaviour: New evidence for the Euro area," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 12-24, September.
    17. Eugene Canjels & Mark W. Watson, 1997. "Estimating Deterministic Trends In The Presence Of Serially Correlated Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(2), pages 184-200, May.
    18. S. Rajagopalan & Arvind Malhotra, 2001. "Have U.S. Manufacturing Inventories Really Decreased? An Empirical Study," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 3(1), pages 14-24, June.
    19. Savin, N Eugene & White, Kenneth J, 1977. "The Durbin-Watson Test for Serial Correlation with Extreme Sample Sizes or Many Regressors," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(8), pages 1989-1996, November.
    20. Marvin B. Lieberman & Lieven Demeester, 1999. "Inventory Reduction and Productivity Growth: Linkages in the Japanese Automotive Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(4), pages 466-485, April.
    21. Ghemawat, Pankaj, 2002. "Competition and Business Strategy in Historical Perspective," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(1), pages 37-74, April.
    22. Marshall L. Fisher & Christopher D. Ittner, 1999. "The Impact of Product Variety on Automobile Assembly Operations: Empirical Evidence and Simulation Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(6), pages 771-786, June.
    23. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1983. "The Production and Inventory Behavior of the American Automobile Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 365-400, June.
    24. Marvin B. Lieberman & Shigeru Asaba, 1997. "Inventory Reduction and Productivity Growth: A Comparison of Japanese and US Automotive Sectors," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(2), pages 73-85.
    25. Ki Ling Cheung & Hau L. Lee, 2002. "The Inventory Benefit of Shipment Coordination and Stock Rebalancing in a Supply Chain," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(2), pages 300-306, February.
    26. Disney, S. M. & Towill, D. R., 2003. "The effect of vendor managed inventory (VMI) dynamics on the Bullwhip Effect in supply chains," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(2), pages 199-215, August.
    27. Irvine, F. Owen, 2003. "Long term trends in US inventory to sales ratios," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 27-39, January.
    28. Hong Chen & Murray Z. Frank & Owen Q. Wu, 2005. "What Actually Happened to the Inventories of American Companies Between 1981 and 2000?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(7), pages 1015-1031, July.
    29. Frank Chen & Zvi Drezner & Jennifer K. Ryan & David Simchi-Levi, 2000. "Quantifying the Bullwhip Effect in a Simple Supply Chain: The Impact of Forecasting, Lead Times, and Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(3), pages 436-443, March.
    30. Erkin Bairam, 1996. "Disaggregate inventory-sales ratios over time: the case of US companies and corporations, 1976-92," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(3), pages 167-169.
    31. Hong Chen & Murray Z. Frank & Owen Q. Wu, 2007. "U.S. Retail and Wholesale Inventory Performance from 1981 to 2004," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 9(4), pages 430-456, April.
    32. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1990. "The Economics of Modern Manufacturing: Technology, Strategy, and Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 511-528, June.
    33. Cuthbertson, Keith & Gasparro, David, 1993. "The Determinants of Manufacturing Inventories in the UK," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(421), pages 1479-1492, November.
    34. Grunwald, Herbert J. & Fortuin, Leonard, 1992. "Many steps towards zero inventory," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 359-369, June.
    35. de Haan, Job & Yamamoto, Masaru, 1999. "Zero inventory management: facts or fiction? Lessons from Japan," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1-3), pages 65-75, March.
    36. Olhager, Jan, 2003. "Strategic positioning of the order penetration point," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 319-329, September.
    37. Edward A. Silver, 1981. "Operations Research in Inventory Management: A Review and Critique," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 628-645, August.
    38. Park, Rolla Edward & Mitchell, Bridger M., 1980. "Estimating the autocorrelated error model with trended data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 185-201, June.
    39. Sadao Sakakibara & Barbara B. Flynn & Roger G. Schroeder & William T. Morris, 1997. "The Impact of Just-in-Time Manufacturing and Its Infrastructure on Manufacturing Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(9), pages 1246-1257, September.
    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. Hartmut Egger & Elke Jahn & Stefan Kornitzky, 2021. "How Does the Position in Business Group Hierarchies Affect Workers’ Wages?," Working Papers 213, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    2. Brandenburg, Marcus, 2016. "Supply chain efficiency, value creation and the economic crisis – An empirical assessment of the European automotive industry 2002–2010," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(P3), pages 321-335.
    3. Egger, Hartmut & Jahn, Elke & Kornitzky, Stefan, 2022. "How does the position in business group hierarchies affect workers’ wages?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 244-263.
    4. Kamalahmadi, Masoud & Parast, Mahour Mellat, 2017. "An assessment of supply chain disruption mitigation strategies," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 210-230.
    5. van Donselaar, K.H. & Peters, J. & de Jong, A. & Broekmeulen, R.A.C.M., 2016. "Analysis and forecasting of demand during promotions for perishable items," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 65-75.
    6. Hofer, Christian & Barker, Jordan & Eroglu, Cuneyt, 2021. "Interorganizational imitation in supply chain relationships: The case of inventory leanness," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).

    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. Sergey Rumyantsev & Serguei Netessine, 2007. "What Can Be Learned from Classical Inventory Models? A Cross-Industry Exploratory Investigation," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 9(4), pages 409-429, April.
    2. Demeter, Krisztina & Golini, Ruggero, 2014. "Inventory configurations and drivers: An international study of assembling industries," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 62-73.
    3. Vikram Tiwari & Srinagesh Gavirneni, 2007. "ASP, The Art and Science of Practice: Recoupling Inventory Control Research and Practice: Guidelines for Achieving Synergy," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 37(2), pages 176-186, April.
    4. Chiang, Chung-Yean & Qian, Zhuang & Chuang, Chia-Hung & Tang, Xiao & Chou, Chia-Ching, 2023. "Examining demand and supply-chain antecedents of inventory dynamics: Evidence from automotive industry," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    5. Cannon, Alan R., 2008. "Inventory improvement and financial performance," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 581-593, October.
    6. Casalin, Fabrizio & Pang, Gu & Maioli, Sara & Cao, Ting, 2017. "Inventories and the concentration of suppliers and customers: Evidence from the Chinese manufacturing sector," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 148-159.
    7. Chad R. Larson & Danko Turcic & Fuqiang Zhang, 2015. "An Empirical Investigation of Dynamic Ordering Policies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(9), pages 2118-2138, September.
    8. Gérard P. Cachon & Marcelo Olivares, 2010. "Drivers of Finished-Goods Inventory in the U.S. Automobile Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(1), pages 202-216, January.
    9. Wang, Xun & Disney, Stephen M., 2016. "The bullwhip effect: Progress, trends and directions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 250(3), pages 691-701.
    10. Teck-Hua Ho & Noah Lim & Sadat Reza & Xiaoyu Xia, 2017. "OM Forum—Causal Inference Models in Operations Management," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 19(4), pages 509-525, October.
    11. Bendig, David & Brettel, Malte & Downar, Benedikt, 2018. "Inventory component volatility and its relation to returns," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 37-49.
    12. Robert L. Bray & Haim Mendelson, 2012. "Information Transmission and the Bullwhip Effect: An Empirical Investigation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(5), pages 860-875, May.
    13. Çömez-Dolgan, Nagihan & Tanyeri, Başak, 2015. "Inventory performance with pooling: Evidence from mergers and acquisitions," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 331-339.
    14. Zotteri, Giulio, 2013. "An empirical investigation on causes and effects of the Bullwhip-effect: Evidence from the personal care sector," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 489-498.
    15. Robb, David J. & Liu, Fei & Lai, Richard & Ren, Z. Justin, 2012. "Inventory in mainland China: Historical, industry, and geographic perspectives," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1), pages 440-450.
    16. Hofer, Christian & Barker, Jordan & Eroglu, Cuneyt, 2021. "Interorganizational imitation in supply chain relationships: The case of inventory leanness," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    17. Moser, Philipp & Isaksson, Olov H.D. & Seifert, Ralf W., 2017. "Inventory dynamics in process industries: An empirical investigation," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 253-266.
    18. Wan, Xiang & Britto, Rodrigo & Zhou, Zenan, 2020. "In search of the negative relationship between product variety and inventory turnover," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    19. Chuang, Chia-Hung & Zhao, Yabing, 2019. "Demand stimulation in finished-goods inventory management: Empirical evidence from General Motors dealerships," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 208-220.
    20. Pastore, Erica & Alfieri, Arianna & Zotteri, Giulio, 2019. "An empirical investigation on the antecedents of the bullwhip effect: Evidence from the spare parts industry," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 121-133.

    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:eee:proeco:v:135:y:2012:i:2:p:964-976. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe .

    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.