IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2003-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inventory dynamics and business cycles: what has changed?

Author

Abstract

Despite the recent patch of sluggish growth, the U.S. economy has experienced a period of remarkable stability since the mid-1980s. One popular explanation attributes the diminished variability of economic activity to information-technology-led improvements in inventory management. Our results, however, indicate that the changes in inventory dynamics since the mid-1980s played a reinforcing---rather than a leading---role in the volatility reduction. Movements in the volatility of manufacturing output over the past three decades almost entirely reflect changes in the variability of the growth contribution of sales. Although the volatility of total inventory investment has fallen, the decline occurred well before the mid-1980s and was driven by the reduced variability of materials and supplies. Our analysis does show that since the mid-1980s, inventory dynamics have played a role in stabilizing manufacturing production: Inventory ``imbalances'' tend to correct more rapidly, and the quicker response of inventories to monetary policy and commodity price shocks buffers production from fluctuations in sales to a greater extent. But more extensive production smoothing and faster dissolution of inventory imbalances appear to be a consequence of changes in the way industry-level sales and aggregate economic activity respond to shocks, rather than a cause of changes in macroeconomic behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan McCarthy & Egon Zakrajšek, 2003. "Inventory dynamics and business cycles: what has changed?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2003-26, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2003-26
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2003/200326/200326abs.html
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2003/200326/200326pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    2. Gourieroux,Christian & Monfort,Alain, 1997. "Time Series and Dynamic Models," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521411462.
    3. Erceg, Christopher J. & Levin, Andrew T., 2003. "Imperfect credibility and inflation persistence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 915-944, May.
    4. Marvin J. Barth III & Valerie A. Ramey, 2002. "The Cost Channel of Monetary Transmission," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2001, Volume 16, pages 199-256, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    6. Miron, Jeffrey A. & Zeldes, Stephen P., 1989. "Production, sales, and the change in inventories : An identity that doesn't add up," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 31-51, July.
    7. Orphanides, Athanasios & Williams, John C., 2005. "The decline of activist stabilization policy: Natural rate misperceptions, learning, and expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1927-1950, November.
    8. 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.
    9. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler, 1995. "Inside the Black Box: The Credit Channel of Monetary Policy Transmission," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 27-48, Fall.
    10. Olivier Blanchard & John Simon, 2001. "The Long and Large Decline in U.S. Output Volatility," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 32(1), pages 135-174.
    11. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro, 1987. "Monopolistic Competition and the Effects of Aggregate Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 647-666, September.
    12. 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.
    13. Orphanides, Athanasios, 2004. "Monetary Policy Rules, Macroeconomic Stability, and Inflation: A View from the Trenches," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(2), pages 151-175, April.
    14. Jean Boivin & Marc Giannoni, 2001. "Has monetary policy become less powerful?," Staff Reports 144, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    15. Russell Cooper & Andrew John, 1988. "Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(3), pages 441-463.
    16. Michael C. Lovell, 1959. "Manufacturers' Inventories, Sales Expectations, and the Acceleration Principle," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 86, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    17. Ben S. Bernanke & Mark Gertler & Mark Watson, 1997. "Systematic Monetary Policy and the Effects of Oil Price Shocks," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(1), pages 91-157.
    18. Sensier, M. & van Dijk, D.J.C., 2001. "Short-term volatility versus long-term growth: evidence in US macroeconomic time series," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI 2001-11, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    19. Jushan Bai, 1997. "Estimation Of A Change Point In Multiple Regression Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(4), pages 551-563, November.
    20. John Simon, 2001. "The Decline in Australian Output Volatility," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2001-01, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    21. Hansen, Bruce E, 1997. "Approximate Asymptotic P Values for Structural-Change Tests," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(1), pages 60-67, January.
    22. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2002. "A Rehabilitation of Monetary Policy in the 1950's," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 121-127, May.
    23. Margaret M. McConnell & Patricia C. Mosser & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 1999. "A decomposition of the increased stability of GDP growth," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 5(Aug).
    24. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the Business Cycle Changed and Why?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2002, Volume 17, pages 159-230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Kim, Chang-Jin & Nelson, Charles R & Piger, Jeremy, 2004. "The Less-Volatile U.S. Economy: A Bayesian Investigation of Timing, Breadth, and Potential Explanations," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22(1), pages 80-93, January.
    26. Watson, Mark W., 1986. "Univariate detrending methods with stochastic trends," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 49-75, July.
    27. Francis E. Warnock & Veronica C. Warnock, 2000. "The declining volatility of U.S. employment: was Arthur Burns right?," International Finance Discussion Papers 677, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    28. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    29. Irvine, F. Owen & Schuh, Scott, 2005. "Inventory investment and output volatility," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 75-86, January.
    30. Orphanides, Athanasios, 2004. "Monetary Policy Rules, Macroeconomic Stability, and Inflation: A View from the Trenches," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(2), pages 151-175, April.
    31. Karl Whelan, 2000. "A guide to the use of chain aggregated NIPA data," Open Access publications 10197/253, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    32. Kilian, Lutz, 2001. "Impulse Response Analysis in Vector Autoregressions with Unknown Lag Order," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(3), pages 161-179, April.
    33. Orphanides, Athanasios, 2003. "Historical monetary policy analysis and the Taylor rule," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 983-1022, July.
    34. Donald S. Allen, 1995. "Changes in inventory management and the business cycle," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Jul, pages 17-26.
    35. 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.
    36. Andrew J. Filardo, 1995. "Recent evidence on the muted inventory cycle," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 80(Q II), pages 27-43.
    37. Alan S. Blinder, 1986. "Can the Production Smoothing Model of Inventory Behavior be Saved?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(3), pages 431-453.
    38. Valerie A. Ramey & Daniel J. Vine, 2004. "Tracking the Source of the Decline in GDP Volatility: An Analysis of the Automobile Industry," NBER Working Papers 10384, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    39. Jean Boivin & Marc Giannoni, 2002. "Assessing changes in the monetary transmission mechanism: a VAR approach," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 8(May), pages 97-111.
    40. Cogley, Timothy, 2002. "A Simple Adaptive Measure of Core Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(1), pages 94-113, February.
    41. 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.
    42. Hall, Alastair R & Sen, Amit, 1999. "Structural Stability Testing in Models Estimated by Generalized Method of Moments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 17(3), pages 335-348, July.
    43. Margaret M. McConnell & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2000. "Output fluctuations in the United States: what has changed since the early 1980s?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    44. Kilian, Lutz & Ivanov, Ventzislav, 2001. "A Practitioner's Guide to Lag-Order Selection for Vector Autoregressions," CEPR Discussion Papers 2685, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    45. Andrews, Donald W K, 1993. "Tests for Parameter Instability and Structural Change with Unknown Change Point," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 821-856, July.
    46. Adam Fein, 2004. "The Myth of Decline: A New Perspective on the Supply Chain and Changing Inventory-Sales Ratios," Working Papers 04-18, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau, revised Feb 2005.
    47. Donald P. Morgan, 1991. "Will just-in-time inventory techniques dampen recessions?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 76(Mar), pages 21-33.
    48. Gourieroux,Christian & Monfort,Alain, 1997. "Time Series and Dynamic Models," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521423083.
    49. Ivanov Ventzislav & Kilian Lutz, 2005. "A Practitioner's Guide to Lag Order Selection For VAR Impulse Response Analysis," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-36, March.
    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. Steven J. Davis & James A. Kahn, 2008. "Interpreting the Great Moderation: Changes in the Volatility of Economic Activity at the Macro and Micro Levels," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(4), pages 155-180, Fall.
    2. Jean Boivin & Marc P. Giannoni, 2006. "Has Monetary Policy Become More Effective?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 445-462, August.
    3. van Dijk, D.J.C. & Osborn, D.R. & Sensier, M., 2002. "Changes in variability of the business cycle in the G7 countries," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI 2002-28, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    4. Marianne Sensier & Dick van Dijk, 2004. "Testing for Volatility Changes in U.S. Macroeconomic Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 833-839, August.
    5. Kwapil, Claudia & Scharler, Johann, 2013. "Expected monetary policy and the dynamics of bank lending rates," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 542-551.
    6. William Martin & Robert Rowthorn, 2004. "Will Stability Last?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1324, CESifo.
    7. Irvine, F. Owen & Schuh, Scott, 2005. "Inventory investment and output volatility," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 75-86, January.
    8. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the Business Cycle Changed and Why?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2002, Volume 17, pages 159-230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Irvine, F. Owen & Schuh, Scott, 2007. "Interest sensitivity and volatility reductions: Cross-section evidence," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1-2), pages 31-42, July.
    10. Travaglini, Guido, 2007. "The U.S. Dynamic Taylor Rule With Multiple Breaks, 1984-2001," MPRA Paper 3419, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Jun 2007.
    11. 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.
    12. F. Owen Irvine & Scott Schuh, 2007. "The roles of comovement and inventory investment in the reduction of output volatility," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    13. Dynan, Karen E. & Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Sichel, Daniel E., 2006. "Can financial innovation help to explain the reduced volatility of economic activity?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 123-150, January.
    14. 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.
    15. Hanson, Michael S., 2006. "Varying monetary policy regimes: A vector autoregressive investigation," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 58(5-6), pages 407-427.
    16. Enders, Walter & Ma, Jun, 2011. "Sources of the great moderation: A time-series analysis of GDP subsectors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 67-79, January.
    17. Marwan Chacra & Maral Kichian, 2004. "A Forecasting Model for Inventory Investments in Canada," Staff Working Papers 04-39, Bank of Canada.
    18. Narayan Kundan Kishor & Monique Newiak, 2014. "The Instability In The Monetary Policy Reaction Function And The Estimation Of Monetary Policy Shocks," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(2), pages 390-402, April.
    19. Margaret M. McConnell & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2000. "Output fluctuations in the United States: what has changed since the early 1980s?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    20. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the business cycle changed?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 9-56.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business cycles; Inventories;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedgfe:2003-26. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.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.