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Financial Constraints, Sectoral Heterogeneity, and the Cyclicality of Investment

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  • Cooper Howes

Abstract

While investment in most sectors declines in response to a contractionary monetary policy shock, investment in the manufacturing sector increases. Using manually digitized aggregate income and balance sheet data for the universe of U.S. manufacturing firms, I show this increase is driven by the types of firms that are least likely to be financially constrained. A two-sector New Keynesian model with financial frictions can match these facts; unconstrained firms are able to take advantage of the decline in the user cost of capital caused by the monetary contraction, while constrained firms are forced to cut back.

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  • Cooper Howes, 2021. "Financial Constraints, Sectoral Heterogeneity, and the Cyclicality of Investment," Research Working Paper RWP 21-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedkrw:93095
    DOI: 10.18651/RWP2021-06
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    1. Financial Constraints, Sectoral Heterogeneity, and the Cyclicality of Investment
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2022-01-04 16:55:53

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    Cited by:

    1. Balleer, Almut & Zorn, Peter, 2019. "Monetary Policy, Price Setting, and Credit Constraints," CEPR Discussion Papers 14163, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Singh, Aarti & Suda, Jacek & Zervou, Anastasia, 2021. "Heterogeneous labour market response to monetary policy: small versus large firms," Working Papers 2021-07, University of Sydney, School of Economics, revised Nov 2021.
    3. Balleer, Almut & Zorn, Peter, 2020. "The Micro-level Price Response to Monetary Policy," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224557, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Monetary Policy; Investments; Financial Frictions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

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