IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/14977.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Lumy Investment Matter for Business Cycles?

Author

Listed:
  • Miao, Jianjun
  • Wang, Pengfei

Abstract

We present an analytically tractable general equilibrium business cycle model that features micro-level investment lumpiness. We prove an exact irrelevance proposition which provides sufficient conditions on preferences, technology, and the fixed cost distribution such that any positive upper support of the fixed cost distribution yields identical equilibrium dynamics of the aggregate quantities normalized by their deterministic steady state values. We also give two conditions for the fixed cost distribution, under which lumpy investment can be important to a first-order approximation: (i) The steady-state elasticity of the adjustment rate is large so that the extensive margin effect is large. (ii) More mass is on low fixed costs so that the general equilibrium price feedback effect is small. Our theoretical results may reconcile some debate and some numerical findings in the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Miao, Jianjun & Wang, Pengfei, 2009. "Does Lumy Investment Matter for Business Cycles?," MPRA Paper 14977, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:14977
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/14977/1/MPRA_paper_14977.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Prescott, Edward C., 1986. "Theory ahead of business-cycle measurement," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 11-44, January.
    2. Michael Dotsey & Robert G. King & Alexander L. Wolman, 1999. "State-Dependent Pricing and the General Equilibrium Dynamics of Money and Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 655-690.
    3. Abel, Andrew B & Eberly, Janice C, 1994. "A Unified Model of Investment under Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1369-1384, December.
    4. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Krusell, Per, 2000. "The role of investment-specific technological change in the business cycle," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 91-115, January.
    5. Miao, Jianjun, 2006. "Competitive equilibria of economies with a continuum of consumers and aggregate shocks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 128(1), pages 274-298, May.
    6. Gourio, Francois & Kashyap, Anil K, 2007. "Investment spikes: New facts and a general equilibrium exploration," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(Supplemen), pages 1-22, September.
    7. Jonas D. M. Fisher, 2006. "The Dynamic Effects of Neutral and Investment-Specific Technology Shocks," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(3), pages 413-451, June.
    8. Abel, Andrew B. & Eberly, Janice C., 1998. "The mix and scale of factors with irreversibility and fixed costs of investment," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 101-135, June.
    9. Ricardo J. Caballero & John V. Leahy, 1996. "Fixed Costs: The Demise of Marginal q," NBER Working Papers 5508, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Aubhik Khan & Julia K. Thomas, 2008. "Idiosyncratic Shocks and the Role of Nonconvexities in Plant and Aggregate Investment Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(2), pages 395-436, March.
    11. Jianjun Miao, 2019. "Corporate Tax Policy and Long-Run Capital Formation: The Role of Irreversibility and Fixed Costs," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 20(1), pages 67-101, May.
    12. Jermann, Urban J., 1998. "Asset pricing in production economies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 257-275, April.
    13. Khan, Aubhik & Thomas, Julia K., 2003. "Nonconvex factor adjustments in equilibrium business cycle models: do nonlinearities matter?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 331-360, March.
    14. Russell W. Cooper & John C. Haltiwanger, 2006. "On the Nature of Capital Adjustment Costs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(3), pages 611-633.
    15. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Business cycle fluctuations in us macroeconomic time series," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 3-64, Elsevier.
    16. Den Haan, Wouter J., 2010. "Assessing the accuracy of the aggregate law of motion in models with heterogeneous agents," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 79-99, January.
    17. Christopher L. House, 2008. "Fixed Costs and Long-Lived Investments," NBER Working Papers 14402, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Baxter, Marianne & Crucini, Mario J, 1993. "Explaining Saving-Investment Correlations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 416-436, June.
    19. Marcelo L. Veracierto, 2002. "Plant-Level Irreversible Investment and Equilibrium Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 181-197, March.
    20. Jonathan Heathcote & Kjetil Storesletten & Giovanni L. Violante, 2009. "Quantitative Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Households," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 319-354, May.
    21. Mark E. Doms & Timothy Dunne, 1998. "Capital Adjustment Patterns in Manufacturing Plants," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(2), pages 409-429, April.
    22. Christopher House, 2008. "Fixed Costs and Long-Lived Investments," 2008 Meeting Papers 3, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    23. King, Robert G & Plosser, Charles I & Rebelo, Sergio T, 2002. "Production, Growth and Business Cycles: Technical Appendix," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 20(1-2), pages 87-116, October.
    24. Ricardo J. Caballero & Eduardo M. R. A. Engel & John C. Haltiwanger, 1995. "Plant-Level Adjustment and Aggregate Investment Dynamics," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(2), pages 1-54.
    25. John Haltiwanger & Russell Cooper & Laura Power, 1999. "Machine Replacement and the Business Cycle: Lumps and Bumps," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 921-946, September.
    26. R?diger Bachmann & Ricardo J. Caballero & Eduardo M. R. A. Engel, 2013. "Aggregate Implications of Lumpy Investment: New Evidence and a DSGE Model," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 29-67, October.
    27. Uzawa, H, 1969. "Time Preference and the Penrose Effect in a Two-Class Model of Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 77(4), pages 628-652, Part II, .
    28. Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2009. "Financial development and economic volatility: a unified explanation," Working Papers 2009-022, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    29. Ricardo J. Caballero & Eduardo M. R. A. Engel, 1999. "Explaining Investment Dynamics in U.S. Manufacturing: A Generalized (S,s) Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 783-826, July.
    30. Andrew B. Abel & Janice C. Eberly, 1996. "Optimal Investment with Costly Reversibility," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(4), pages 581-593.
    31. Julia K. Thomas, 2002. "Is Lumpy Investment Relevant for the Business Cycle?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 508-534, June.
    32. Hayashi, Fumio, 1982. "Tobin's Marginal q and Average q: A Neoclassical Interpretation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 213-224, January.
    33. Per Krusell & Anthony A. Smith & Jr., 1998. "Income and Wealth Heterogeneity in the Macroeconomy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 867-896, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jianjun Miao & Pengfei Wang, 2014. "Lumpy Investment and Corporate Tax Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(6), pages 1171-1203, September.

    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. Jianjun Miao & Pengfei Wang, 2014. "A Q-theory model with lumpy investment," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 57(1), pages 133-159, September.
    2. House, Christopher L., 2014. "Fixed costs and long-lived investments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 86-100.
    3. Jianjun Miao & Pengfei Wang, 2014. "Lumpy Investment and Corporate Tax Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(6), pages 1171-1203, September.
    4. Christopher L. House, 2008. "Fixed Costs and Long-Lived Investments," NBER Working Papers 14402, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Pengfei Wang & Yi Wen, 2012. "Hayashi Meets Kiyotaki and Moore: A Theory of Capital Adjustment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(2), pages 207-225, April.
    6. Christian Bayer & Volker Tjaden, 2016. "Large Open Economies and Fixed Costs of Capital Adjustment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 21, pages 125-146, July.
    7. Fiori, Giuseppe, 2012. "Lumpiness, capital adjustment costs and investment dynamics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 381-392.
    8. Jack Favilukis & Xiaoji Lin, 2011. "Micro Frictions, Asset Pricing and Aggregate," FMG Discussion Papers dp673, Financial Markets Group.
    9. Xiaoji Lin & Jack Favilukis, 2011. "Micro Frictions, Asset Pricing, and Aggregate Implications," 2011 Meeting Papers 466, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Nicholas Bloom & Max Floetotto & Nir Jaimovich & Itay Saporta†Eksten & Stephen J. Terry, 2018. "Really Uncertain Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(3), pages 1031-1065, May.
    11. Fabio Verona, 2014. "Investment Dynamics with Information Costs," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(8), pages 1627-1656, December.
    12. Del Boca, Alessandra & Galeotti, Marzio & Rota, Paola, 2008. "Non-convexities in the adjustment of different capital inputs: A firm-level investigation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 315-337, February.
    13. Aubhik Khan & Julia K. Thomas, 2008. "Idiosyncratic Shocks and the Role of Nonconvexities in Plant and Aggregate Investment Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(2), pages 395-436, March.
    14. Jianjun Miao, 2019. "Corporate Tax Policy and Long-Run Capital Formation: The Role of Irreversibility and Fixed Costs," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 20(1), pages 67-101, May.
    15. Elsby, Michael W.L. & Michaels, Ryan, 2019. "Fixed adjustment costs and aggregate fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 128-147.
    16. Fabio Verona, 2011. "Lumpy investment in sticky information general equilibrium," CEF.UP Working Papers 1102, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    17. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2013_018 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Fabio Verona, 2014. "Investment Dynamics with Information Costs," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(8), pages 1627-1656, December.
    19. Khan, Aubhik & Thomas, Julia K., 2003. "Nonconvex factor adjustments in equilibrium business cycle models: do nonlinearities matter?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 331-360, March.
    20. R?diger Bachmann & Ricardo J. Caballero & Eduardo M. R. A. Engel, 2013. "Aggregate Implications of Lumpy Investment: New Evidence and a DSGE Model," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 29-67, October.
    21. Julia K. Thomas, 2002. "Is Lumpy Investment Relevant for the Business Cycle?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 508-534, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    generalized (S; s) rule; lumpy investment; general equilibrium; business cycles; marginal Q; exact irrelevance proposition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity

    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:pra:mprapa:14977. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.