IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1257.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can The Production Smoothing Model of Inventory Behavior be Saved?

Author

Listed:
  • Alan S. Blinder

Abstract

The production smoothing model of inventory behavior has a long and venerable history, and theoretical foundations which seem very strong. Yet certain overwhelming facts seem not only to defy explanation within the production smoothing framework, but actually to argue that the basic idea of production smoothing is all wrong. Most prominent wnong these is the fact that the variance of detrended production exceeds the variance of detrended sales.This paper first documents the stylized facts. Then it derives the production smoothing model rigorously and explains how the model can be amended to make it consistent with the facts. Next, estimates of stock adjustment equations derived from the theory are presented and evaluated. Finally, it reviews the theoretical and empirical evidence and tries to drawsome tentative conclusions.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan S. Blinder, 1984. "Can The Production Smoothing Model of Inventory Behavior be Saved?," NBER Working Papers 1257, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1257
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1257.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. West, Kenneth D, 1986. "A Variance Bounds Test of the Linear Quadratic Inventory Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(2), pages 374-401, April.
    2. Akhtar, M A, 1983. "Effects of Interest Rates and Inflation on Aggregate Inventory Investment in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 319-328, June.
    3. 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.
    4. Alan S. Blinder, 1981. "Retail Inventory Behavior and Business Fluctuations," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 12(2), pages 443-520.
    5. F. Owen Irvine, 1981. "Specification errors and the stock-adjustment model: why estimated speeds-of-adjustment are too slow in inventory equations," Working Paper Series / Economic Activity Section 14, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. 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.
    7. Alan J. Auerbach & Jerry R. Green, 1980. "Components of Manufacturing Inventories," NBER Working Papers 0491, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Lieberman, Charles, 1980. "Inventory Demand and Cost of Capital Effects," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(3), pages 348-356, August.
    9. 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.
    10. Irvine, F Owen, Jr, 1981. "Retail Inventory Investment and the Cost of Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 633-648, September.
    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. 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.
    2. Louri, Helen, 1996. "Inventory investment in Greek manufacturing industry: Effects from participation in the European market," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1-3), pages 47-54, August.
    3. Alan S. Blinder & Douglas Holtz-Eakin, 1986. "Inventory Fluctuations in the United States since 1929," NBER Chapters, in: The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, pages 183-236, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. 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.
    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. 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.
    7. Kenneth D. West, 1993. "Inventory Models," NBER Technical Working Papers 0143, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Wen, Yi, 2005. "Understanding the inventory cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1533-1555, November.
    9. Yi Wen, 2008. "Inventories, liquidity, and the macroeconomy," Working Papers 2008-045, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    10. Marcel Fafchamps Jan Willem Gunning & Remco Oostendorp, "undated". "Inventories, Liquidity, and Contractual Risk in African Manufacturing," Working Papers 97020, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    11. 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.
    12. Fafchamps, Marcel & Gunning, Jan Willem & Oostendorp, Remco, 2000. "Inventories and Risk in African Manufacturing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 861-93, October.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:1257. 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/nberrus.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.