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Business Cycles, Investment Shocks, and the "Barro-King" Curse

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  • Guido Ascari
  • Louis Phaneuf
  • Eric Sims

Abstract

Recent empirical evidence identifies investment shocks as key driving forces behind business cycle fluctuations. However, existing New Keynesian models emphasizing these shocks counterfactually imply a negative unconditional correlation between consumption growth and investment growth, a weak positive unconditional correlation between consumption growth and output growth and anomalous profiles of cross-correlations involving consumption growth. These anomalies arise because of a short-run contractionary effect a positive investment shock on consumption. Such counterfactual co-movements are typical of the "Barro-King curse" (Barro and King 1984), wherein models with a real business cycle core must rely on technology shocks to account for the observed co-movement among output, consumption, investment, and hours. We show that two realistic additions to an otherwise standard medium scale New Keynesian model – namely, roundabout production and real per capita output growth stemming from trend growth in neutral and investment-specific technologies – can break the Barro-King curse and provide a more accurate account of unconditional business cycle comovements more generally. These two features substantially magnify the effects of neutral technology and investment shocks on aggregate fluctuations and generate a rise of consumption on impact of a positive investment shock.

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  • Guido Ascari & Louis Phaneuf & Eric Sims, 2016. "Business Cycles, Investment Shocks, and the "Barro-King" Curse," NBER Working Papers 22941, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22941
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    Cited by:

    1. George-Marios Angeletos & Fabrice Collard & Harris Dellas, 2020. "Business-Cycle Anatomy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(10), pages 3030-3070, October.
    2. Yoonseok Choi, 2020. "Investment Shocks, Consumption Puzzle, And Business Cycles," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(3), pages 1387-1400, July.
    3. Den Haan, Wouter J. & Drechsel, Thomas, 2021. "Agnostic Structural Disturbances (ASDs): Detecting and reducing misspecification in empirical macroeconomic models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 258-277.
    4. Chin‐Yoong Wong & Yoke‐Kee Eng, 2020. "P2P finance and the effectiveness of monetary controls," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(4), pages 617-639, July.
    5. Fabio Massimo Piersanti & Patrizio Tirelli, 2020. "Endogenous Productivity Dynamics in a Two-Sector Business Cycle Model," Working Papers 434, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2020.

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    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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