IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgif/768.html

What happens after a technology shock?

Author

Abstract

We provide empirical evidence that a positive shock to technology drives up per capita hours worked, consumption, investment, average productivity and output . This evidence contrasts sharply with the results reported in a large and growing literature that argues, on the basis of aggregate data, that per capita hours worked fall after a positive technology shock. We argue that the difference in results primarily reflects specification error in the way that the literature models the low-frequency component of hours worked.

Suggested Citation

  • Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin S. Eichenbaum & Robert J. Vigfusson, 2003. "What happens after a technology shock?," International Finance Discussion Papers 768, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgif:768
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/2003/768/default.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/2003/768/ifdp768.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler & J. David López-Salido, 2007. "Markups, Gaps, and the Welfare Costs of Business Fluctuations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 44-59, November.
    2. Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 2003. "The Band Pass Filter," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(2), pages 435-465, May.
    3. Miles S. Kimball & John G. Fernald & Susanto Basu, 2006. "Are Technology Improvements Contractionary?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1418-1448, December.
    4. Caner, M. & Kilian, L., 2001. "Size distortions of tests of the null hypothesis of stationarity: evidence and implications for the PPP debate," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 639-657, October.
    5. Neville Francis & Valerie A. Ramey, 2002. "Is the Technology-Driven Real Business Cycle Hypothesis Dead?," NBER Working Papers 8726, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin S. Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2001. "Nominal rigidities and the dynamic effects of a shock to monetary policy," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue jun.
    7. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles L., 1999. "Monetary policy shocks: What have we learned and to what end?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 65-148, Elsevier.
    8. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    9. Lawrence J. Christiano & Lars Ljungqvist, 1987. "Money does Granger-cause output in the bivariate output-money relation," Staff Report 108, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    10. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I. & Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1991. "Stochastic Trends and Economic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 819-840, September.
    11. Martin Eichenbaum & Kenneth J. Singleton, 1987. "Erratum: Do Equilibrium Real Business Cycle Theories Explain Postwar US Business Cycles?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1987, Volume 2, pages 317-321, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Michele Boldrin & Lawrence J. Christiano & Jonas D.M. Fisher, 1995. "Asset Pricing Lessons for Modeling Business Cycles," NBER Working Papers 5262, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Jinyong Hahn & Jerry Hausman & Guido Kuersteiner, 2005. "Bias Corrected Instrumental Variables Estimation for Dynamic Panel Models with Fixed E¤ects," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2005-024, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    14. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Ljungqvist, Lars, 1988. "Money does Granger-cause output in the bivariate money-output relation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 217-235, September.
    15. Leybourne, S J & McCabe, B P M, 1994. "A Consistent Test for a Unit Root," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 12(2), pages 157-166, April.
    16. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    17. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1992. "Current Real-Business-Cycle Theories and Aggregate Labor-Market Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 430-450, June.
    18. Matthew D. Shapiro & Mark W. Watson, 1988. "Sources of Business Cycle Fluctuations," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1988, Volume 3, pages 111-156, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1990. "Unit roots in real GNP: Do we know, and do we care?," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 7-61, January.
    20. Lawrence J. Christiano & Richard M. Todd, 1996. "Time to plan and aggregate fluctuations," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 20(Win), pages 14-27.
    21. James H. Stock & Motohiro Yogo, 2002. "Testing for Weak Instruments in Linear IV Regression," NBER Technical Working Papers 0284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Elliott, Graham & Jansson, Michael, 2003. "Testing for unit roots with stationary covariates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 75-89, July.
    23. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    24. DeJong, David N, et al, 1992. "Integration versus Trend Stationarity in Time Series," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(2), pages 423-433, March.
    25. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    26. Hansen, Bruce E., 1995. "Rethinking the Univariate Approach to Unit Root Testing: Using Covariates to Increase Power," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(5), pages 1148-1171, October.
    27. John Shea, 1999. "What Do Technology Shocks Do?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1998, volume 13, pages 275-322, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Gali, Jordi & Lopez-Salido, J. David & Valles, Javier, 2003. "Technology shocks and monetary policy: assessing the Fed's performance," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 723-743, May.
    29. Jordi Gali, 1999. "Technology, Employment, and the Business Cycle: Do Technology Shocks Explain Aggregate Fluctuations?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(1), pages 249-271, March.
    30. repec:cup:etheor:v:11:y:1995:i:5:p:1148-71 is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Jonas D. M. Fisher, 2002. "Technology shocks matter," Working Paper Series WP-02-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    32. Sims, Christopher A & Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 1990. "Inference in Linear Time Series Models with Some Unit Roots," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 113-144, January.
    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. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin S. Eichenbaum & Robert J. Vigfusson, 2003. "How do Canadian hours worked respond to a technology shock?," International Finance Discussion Papers 774, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Robert Vigfusson, 2004. "The Response of Hours to a Technology Shock: Evidence Based on Direct Measures of Technology," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(2-3), pages 381-395, 04/05.
    3. G. Peersman & R. Straub, 2006. "Putting the New Keynesian Model to a Test," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 06/375, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    4. Sean Holly & Ivan Petrella, 2012. "Factor Demand Linkages, Technology Shocks, and the Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 948-963, November.
    5. Sergio Rebelo, 2005. "Real Business Cycle Models: Past, Present, and Future," NBER Working Papers 11401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Dedola, Luca & Neri, Stefano, 2007. "What does a technology shock do? A VAR analysis with model-based sign restrictions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 512-549, March.
    7. Dufourt, Frederic, 2005. "Demand and productivity components of business cycles: Estimates and implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1089-1105, September.
    8. David Altig & Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Jesper Linde, 2011. "Firm-Specific Capital, Nominal Rigidities and the Business Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 225-247, April.
    9. Francesco Zanetti, 2003. "Non-Walrasian Labor Market and the European Business Cycle," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 574, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 20 May 2004.
    10. Holly, S. & Petrella, I., 2008. "Factor demand linkages and the business cycle: Interpreting aggregate fluctuations as sectoral fluctuations," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0827, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    11. Hashmat Khan & John Tsoukalas, 2005. "Technology Shocks and UK Business Cycles," Macroeconomics 0512006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Francis, Neville & Ramey, Valerie A., 2005. "Is the technology-driven real business cycle hypothesis dead? Shocks and aggregate fluctuations revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1379-1399, November.
    13. Justiniano, Alejandro & Primiceri, Giorgio E. & Tambalotti, Andrea, 2010. "Investment shocks and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 132-145, March.
    14. Zanetti, Francesco, 2011. "Labor market institutions and aggregate fluctuations in a search and matching model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 644-658, June.
    15. Jonas D. M. Fisher, 2002. "Technology shocks matter," Working Paper Series WP-02-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    16. Ramey, V.A., 2016. "Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 71-162, Elsevier.
    17. Neville Francis & Michael T. Owyang & Athena T. Theodorou, 2003. "The use of long-run restrictions for the identification of technology shocks," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 85(Nov), pages 53-66.
    18. Ambler, Steve & Guay, Alain & Phaneuf, Louis, 2012. "Endogenous business cycle propagation and the persistence problem: The role of labor-market frictions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 47-62.
    19. Fernald, John, 2006. "Trend Breaks, Long-Run Restrictions and the Contractionary Effects of Technology Improvements," CEPR Discussion Papers 5631, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Domenico J. Marchetti & Francesco Nucci, 2007. "Pricing Behavior and the Response of Hours to Productivity Shocks," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(7), pages 1587-1611, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C1 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General
    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

    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:fedgif:768. 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.