IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tky/fseres/2025cf1263.html

The Origins and Propagation of Animal Spirits Shocks

Author

Listed:
  • Makoto Nirei

    (Faculty of Economics, the University of Tokyo)

  • Xavier Ragot

    (Department of Economics, Sciences Po)

Abstract

This paper presents a business cycle model where animal spirits shocks, originating from idiosyncratic productivity shocks, drive the comovement of investment, consumption, hours worked, and inflation. In the fully characterized comovement mechanism, real wage rigidity and diminishing returns to labor, resulting from the presence of capital, play a crucial role: a positive investment demand shock raises labor demand, decreases the marginal product of labor, and increases the marginal cost of producing final goods. Our model features a firm’s lumpy investment, leading to a state-dependent multiplier effect, which depends on the firm’s capital profile within an inaction band. Lumpy investments, propagated through the aggregate demand externality, generate an investment avalanche. This offers a microfoundation for our animal spirits shocks and produces aggregate fluctuations without assuming exogenous aggregate shocks.Additionally, by including a time-to-build process for capital formation, the model can explain the autocorrelation structure.

Suggested Citation

  • Makoto Nirei & Xavier Ragot, 2025. "The Origins and Propagation of Animal Spirits Shocks," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1263, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    • Handle: RePEc:tky:fseres:2025cf1263
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2025/2025cf1263.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Russell Cooper & Andrew John, 1988. "Coordinating Coordination Failures in Keynesian Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(3), pages 441-463.
    3. Dupor, Bill, 1999. "Aggregation and irrelevance in multi-sector models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 391-409, April.
    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. Makoto Nirei, 2013. "Interaction-based Foundation of Aggregate Investment Shocks," 2013 Meeting Papers 128, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Nirei, Makoto, 2015. "An interaction-based foundation of aggregate investment fluctuations," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 10(3), September.
    3. Makoto Nirei, 2004. "Lumpy Investment, Sectoral Propagation, and Business Cycles," 2004 Meeting Papers 774, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. A. Andrew John & Alexander L. Wolman, 2004. "An inquiry into the existence and uniqueness of equilibrium with state-dependent pricing," Working Paper 04-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Asuman Ozdaglar & Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi, 2013. "The Network Origins of Large Economic Downturns," NBER Working Papers 19230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Luigi Guiso & Chaoqun Lai & Makoto Nirei, 2017. "An Empirical Study of Interaction-Based Aggregate Investment Fluctuations," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 68(2), pages 137-157, June.
    7. Luigi Guiso & Chaoqun Lai & Makoto Mirei, 2011. "Detecting Propagation Effects by Observing Aggregate Distributions: The Case of Lumpy Investments," EIEF Working Papers Series 1112, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF), revised Jun 2011.
    8. John, A.Andrew & Wolman, Alexander L., 2008. "Steady-state equilibrium with state-dependent pricing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 383-405, March.
    9. Antonio Cabrales & Rosemarie Nagel & Roc Armenter, 2007. "Equilibrium selection through incomplete information in coordination games: an experimental study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(3), pages 221-234, September.
    10. Christoph Görtz & John D. Tsoukalas, 2013. "Sector Specific News Shocks in Aggregate and Sectoral Fluctuations," CESifo Working Paper Series 4269, CESifo.
    11. James Bland & Nikos Nikiforakis, 2013. "Tacit Coordination in Games with Third-Party Externalities," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics 2013_19, Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics.
    12. Robert E. Hall, 2002. "Industry Dynamics with Adjustment Costs," NBER Working Papers 8849, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Takayuki MIZUNO & Wataru SOUMA & Tsutomu WATANABE, 2015. "Buyer-Supplier Networks and Aggregate Volatility," Discussion papers 15056, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    14. Lau, Sau-Him Paul, 2001. "Aggregate Pattern of Time-dependent Adjustment Rules, II: Strategic Complementarity and Endogenous Nonsynchronization," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 199-231, June.
    15. Elvio Accinelli & Juan Gabriel Brida, 2007. "Modelos económicos con múltiples regímenes," Revista de Administración, Finanzas y Economía (Journal of Management, Finance and Economics), Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Ciudad de México, vol. 1(2), pages 96-115.
    16. Guido Friebel & Matthias Heinz & Miriam Krueger & Nikolay Zubanov, 2017. "Team Incentives and Performance: Evidence from a Retail Chain," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2168-2203, August.
    17. Ennis, Huberto M. & Keister, Todd, 2005. "Government policy and the probability of coordination failures," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 939-973, May.
    18. Boyarchenko, Svetlana & Machowska, Dominika & Topolyan, Iryna, 2025. "Supermodularity and incentive reversal in teams," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 93-105.
    19. Evans, Geroge W & Honkapohja, Seppo & Romer, Paul, 1998. "Growth Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 495-515, June.
    20. Sniekers, F.J.T., 2013. "Endogenous Beveridge cycles and the volatility of unemployment," CeNDEF Working Papers 13-12, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.

    More about this item

    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:tky:fseres:2025cf1263. 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: CIRJE administrative office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ritokjp.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.