IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/corcae/03-08.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Understanding the Inventory Cycle: I. Partial Equilibrium Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Wen, Yi

    (Cornell U)

Abstract

Careful examination of aggregate data from the U.S. and other OECD countries reveals that production and inventory behavior exhibit paradoxical features: 1) Inventory investment is strongly countercyclical at very high frequencies (e.g., 2-3 quarters per cycle); it is procyclical only at relatively low cyclical frequencies such as the business-cycle frequencies (e.g., 8-40 quarters per cycle). 2) Production is less volatile than sales around the high frequencies; it is more volatile than sales only around business-cycle or lower frequencies. 3) Unlike capital investment or GDP, the bulk of the variance of inventory investment is concentrated around high frequencies rather than around business-cycle frequencies. These features of production and inventory behavior at the low and high frequencies provide a litmus test for inventory theories. This paper shows that the stockout-avoidance theory (Kahn, AER 1987) has a much better potential than any other competing theories for explaining the seemingly paradoxical features of inventory fluctuations observed at different cyclical frequencies. My analysis suggests that demand shocks are the source of the business cycle.

Suggested Citation

  • Wen, Yi, 2003. "Understanding the Inventory Cycle: I. Partial Equilibrium Analysis," Working Papers 03-08, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:ecl:corcae:03-08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cae.economics.cornell.edu/caewp0308.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angus Deaton & Guy Laroque, 1992. "On the Behaviour of Commodity Prices," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(1), pages 1-23.
    2. 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.
    3. James A. Kahn & Mark Bils, 2000. "What Inventory Behavior Tells Us about Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 458-481, June.
    4. Alan S. Blinder, 1986. "Can the Production Smoothing Model of Inventory Behavior be Saved?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 101(3), pages 431-453.
    5. Ramey, Valerie A. & West, Kenneth D., 1999. "Inventories," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 863-923, Elsevier.
    6. Humphreys, Brad R. & Maccini, Louis J. & Schuh, Scott, 2001. "Input and output inventories," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 347-375, April.
    7. Jonas D. M. Fisher & Andreas Hornstein, 2000. "(S, s) Inventory Policies in General Equilibrium," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 67(1), pages 117-145.
    8. Ricardo J. Caballero & Eduardo M. R. A. Engel, 1999. "Explaining Investment Dynamics in U.S. Manufacturing: A Generalized (S,s) Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 783-826, July.
    9. Maccini, Louis J & Zabel, Edward, 1996. "Serial Correlation in Demand, Backlogging and Production Volatility," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(2), pages 423-452, May.
    10. Kahn, James A, 1987. "Inventories and the Volatility of Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 667-679, September.
    11. Ramey, Valerie A, 1991. "Nonconvex Costs and the Behavior of Inventories," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 306-334, April.
    12. Chow, Gregory C., 1997. "Dynamic Economics: Optimization by the Lagrange Method," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195101928.
    13. Martin Feldstein & Alan Auerbach, 1976. "Inventory Behavior in Durable-Goods Manufacturing: The Target-Adjustment Model," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 7(2), pages 351-408.
    14. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1982. "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1345-1370, November.
    15. 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.
    16. Blinder, Alan S, 1982. "Inventories and Sticky Prices: More on the Microfoundations of Macroeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 334-348, June.
    17. James A. Kahn, 1992. "Why is Production More Volatile than Sales? Theory and Evidence on the Stockout-Avoidance Motive for Inventory-Holding," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 107(2), pages 481-510.
    18. Finn E. Kydland & Edward C. Prescott, 1990. "Business cycles: real facts and a monetary myth," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 14(Spr), pages 3-18.
    19. Yakov Amihud & Haim Mendelson, 1983. "Price Smoothing and Inventory," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(1), pages 87-98.
    20. Eichenbaum, Martin, 1989. "Some Empirical Evidence on the Production Level and Production Cost Smoothing Models of Inventory Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 853-864, September.
    21. Wen, Yi, 2002. "Fickle Consumers versus Random Technology: Explaining Domestic and International Comovements," Working Papers 02-01, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
    22. Andreas Hornstein, 1998. "Inventory investment and the business cycle," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Spr, pages 49-71.
    23. Long, John B, Jr & Plosser, Charles I, 1983. "Real Business Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(1), pages 39-69, February.
    24. Marianne Baxter & Robert G. King, 1991. "Productive externalities and business cycles," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 53, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    25. Ramey, Valerie A, 1989. "Inventories as Factors of Production and Economic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 338-354, June.
    26. Krane, Spencer D, 1994. "The Distinction between Inventory Holding and Stockout Costs: Implications for Target Inventories, Asymmetric Adjustment, and the Effect of Aggregation on Production Smoothing," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 35(1), pages 117-136, February.
    27. Andrew B. Abel, 1985. "Inventories, Stock-Outs and Production Smoothing," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 52(2), pages 283-293.
    28. Lucas, Robert E., 1977. "Understanding business cycles," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 7-29, January.
    29. Christiano, Lawrence J., 1988. "Why does inventory investment fluctuate so much?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 247-280.
    30. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1988. "Production, growth and business cycles : I. The basic neoclassical model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 195-232.
    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. Yi Wen, 2011. "Input and Output Inventory Dynamics," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 181-212, October.
    2. Yi Wen, 2007. "Production and Inventory Behavior of Capital," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 8(1), pages 95-112, May.
    3. Wen, Yi, 2003. "The Power of Demand: A General Equilibrium Analysis of Multi-Stage-Fabrication Economy with Inventories," Working Papers 03-13r, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
    4. Wen, Yi, 2005. "Understanding the inventory cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1533-1555, November.
    5. Zhiwei Xu & Yi Wen & pengfei Wang, 2012. "When Do Inventories Destabilize the Economy? ---A Tractable Approach to (S,s) Policies," 2012 Meeting Papers 288, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Wen, Yi, 2004. "General Equilibrium Analysis of the Supply of Capital," Working Papers 04-02, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
    7. Yi Wen, 2008. "Inventories, liquidity, and the macroeconomy," Working Papers 2008-045, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    8. Wen, Yi, 2003. "Durable Goods Inventories and the Volatility of Production: A Puzzle," Working Papers 03-12, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
    9. Yi Wen, 2005. "The multiplier: a general equilibrium analysis of multi-stage-fabrication economy with inventories," Working Papers 2005-046, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    10. Aubhik Khan & Julia K. Thomas, 2007. "Inventories and the Business Cycle: An Equilibrium Analysis of ( S , s ) Policies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1165-1188, September.
    11. Wen, Yi, 2004. "Durable Goods Inventories and the Volatility of Production: Explaining the Less Volatile U.S. Economy," Working Papers 04-01, Cornell University, Center for Analytic Economics.
    12. Ramey, Valerie A. & West, Kenneth D., 1999. "Inventories," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 863-923, Elsevier.
    13. Hall, George & Rust, John, 2000. "An empirical model of inventory investment by durable commodity intermediaries," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 171-214, June.
    14. Humphreys, Brad R. & Maccini, Louis J. & Schuh, Scott, 2001. "Input and output inventories," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 347-375, April.
    15. James A. Kahn & Mark Bils, 2000. "What Inventory Behavior Tells Us about Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 458-481, June.
    16. Louis J. Maccini & Bartholomew J. Moore & Huntley Schaller, 2004. "The Interest Rate, Learning, and Inventory Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1303-1327, December.
    17. Maccini, Louis J. & Moore, Bartholomew & Schaller, Huntley, 2015. "Inventory behavior with permanent sales shocks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 290-313.
    18. Matteo Iacoviello & Fabio Schiantarelli & Scott Schuh, 2011. "Input And Output Inventories In General Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1179-1213, November.
    19. Blinder, Alan S & Maccini, Louis J, 1991. "The Resurgence of Inventory Research: What Have We Learned?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 5(4), pages 291-328.
    20. Bivin, David, 1999. "A Model of the Production Lag and Work-in-Process Inventories," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 509-536, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

    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:ecl:corcae:03-08. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cacorus.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.