Input and Output Inventories in the UK

What is the role of inventories in UK manufacturing? We present and estimate a model of inventories that considers separately finished goods and input (i.e. the sum of raw materials and work-in-process) inventories. We estimate structural parameters which allows us to make inferences on the role of inventories in cyclical frequencies. Our results suggest that both types of inventories are used for production level (from demand shocks) and production cost (from cost shocks) smoothing. We identify a small but significant negative relationship between inventories and the real interest rate thus providing support for one of the textbook channels of the monetary policy transmission mechanism. Variance decompositions indicate that technology shocks are the dominant driving factor behind cyclical changes in inventories. These shocks account for over 35% of the forecast error variance at these frequencies.Inventories; Linear-quadratic model; Interest rates

Financing Constraints and Firm Inventory Investment: A Reexamination

This paper shows that small firms inventory investment is substantially more sensitive (relative to large firms) to cash flow than previously recognized. Consequently, the strength of financing constraints on inventory investment may have been understated.Inventories, Dynamic Panel Models

Input and Output Inventories in the UK

What is the role of inventories in UK manufacturing? We present and estimate a model of inventories that considers separately finished goods and input (i.e. the sum of raw materials and work-in-process) inventories. We estimate structural parameters which allows us to make inferences on the role of inventories in cyclical frequencies. Our results suggest that both types of inventories are used for production level (from demand shocks) and production cost (from cost shocks) smoothing. We identify a small but significant negative relationship between inventories and the real interest rate thus providing support for one of the textbook channels of the monetary policy transmission mechanism. Variance decompositions indicate that technology shocks are the dominant driving factor behind cyclical changes in inventories. These shocks account for over 35% of the forecast error variance at these frequencies.Inventories; Linear-quadratic model; Interest rates.

News and Financial Intermediation in Aggregate Fluctuations

We develop a two-sector DSGE model with financial intermediation to investigate the role of news as a driving force of the business cycle. We find that news about future capital quality is a significant source of aggregate fluctuations, accounting for around 37% in output variation in cyclical frequencies. Financial intermediation is essential for the importance and propagation of capital quality shocks. In addition, news shocks in capital quality generate aggregate and sectoral comovement as in the data and is consistent with procyclical movements in the value of capital. From a historical perspective, news shocks to capital quality are to a large extent responsible for the recession following the 1990s investment boom and the latest recession following the financial crisis, but played a much smaller role during the recession at the beginning of the 1990s. This is in line with the belief that revisions of overoptimistic expectations contributed to the last two recessions while movements in fundamentals played a much bigger role for the recession at the beginning of the 1990s

The Cyclical Dynamics of Investment: The Role of Financing and Irreversibility Constraints

This paper develops a rich decision theoretic dynamic ¯rm model that analyzes productivity and interest rate shocks. The model is used to analyze the cyclical dynamics of fixed and inventory investment and in particular asks whether constraints to the flow of funds can generate the frequently overlooked fact that investment in input inventories leads investment in fixed capital in business cycle frequencies. To account for this regularity the model proposes a combination of irreversibility and financing constraints. The usefulness of this explanation in relation to competing hypotheses, relies on the fact that it is also consistent with a list of facts from the inventory research. In addition it is shown that under persistent shocks, financing constraints are sufficient but not necessary to explain procyclicality. This implies that fixed investment cash flow regressions may not be informative for the presence of capital market imperfections because positive correlations can arise even under perfect capital markets. Last, analysis of interest rate shocks implies that the effects on inventory spending are quite small in relation to effects arising from productivity shocks.Financing Constraints, Inventories, Investment, Perturbation methods, Time-to-build

Technology Shocks and UK Business Cycles

After a neutral technology shock, hours worked decline in a persistent manner in the UK. This response is robust to a variety of considerations in the recent literature: measures of labour input, level versus differenced hours in the VAR, small and large VARS, long- versus medium- run identification, and neutral versus investment-specific technology shocks. The UK economy, therefore, offers a unique perspective on the response of hours to technology shocks. The large negative correlation between labour productivity and hours is the source of this response. Models with nominal price stickiness, low substitutability between domestic and foreign consumption, and investment-specific shocks appear to be most plausible in interpreting the short-run effects of technology shocks. Quantitatively, however, technology shocks account for under 20% of the business cycle variation in hours and under 30% of business cycle variation in output. These findings suggest that technology shocks may play only a limited role in driving UK business cycles.Techology shocks, business cycles

Learning, capital-embodied technology and aggregate fluctuations

Business cycles in the U.S. and G-7 economies are asymmetric: recoveries and expansions tend to be long and gradual and busts tend to be short and sharp. Moreover, this type of asymmetry appears more pronounced in the last two cyclical episodes in the G-7. A large body of work views the last two cyclical U.S. episodes, namely, the``new economy" boom in the late 1990s, and the 2000s housing boom-bust as episodes where over-optimistic beliefs have played a significant role. These episodes have revived interest in expectations driven business cycles models. However, previous work in this area has not addressed the important asymmetry feature of business cycles. This paper takes a step towards addressing this limitation of expectations driven business cycle models. We propose a generalization of the Greenwood et al. (1988) model with vintage capital and learning about capital embodied productivity and show it can deliver fluctuations that are asymmetric as in the U.S. data. Learning, calibrated to match the procyclical forecast precision from the Survey of Professional Forecasters, is crucial for the model's ability to generate asymmetries. Forecast errors generated by the model are shown to: (a) amplify fluctuations, and (b) trigger recessions that mimic in magnitude, duration and depth the typical post WW II U.S. recession.News shocks, expectations, growth asymmetry, Bayesian learning, business cycles

Learning, Capital-Embodied Technology and Aggregate Fluctuations

Recent evidence suggests that agents’ expectations may have played a role in several cycli¬cal episodes such as the U.S. "new economy" boom in the late 1990s, the real estate boom in Japan in the 1980s and the real estate boom in the U.S. which ended in 2008. One chal¬lenge in the expectations driven view of fluctuations has been to develop simple one sector models that can give rise to such fluctuations without a compromise on other dimensions. In this paper we propose a simple generalization of the Greenwood et al. (1988) one sec¬tor model and show it can generate fluctuations that arise as a result of agents difficulty to forecast productivity embodied in new capital. The two key assumptions in the model are: (1) the vintage view of capital productivity, whereby each successive vintage has (po¬tentially) different productivity and (2) agents’ imperfect information and learning about this productivity. The model is consistent with second and third moments from U.S. data. Simulations of the model suggest that, (a) noise amplifies fluctuations and (b) pure noise can trigger recessions that mimic in magnitude, duration and depth the typical post WW II U.S. recession.News shocks, expectations, growth asymmetry, Bayesian learning, business cy¬cles.

To what extent are savings-cash flow sensitivities informative to test for capital market imperfections?

We construct a simple model with lumpy investment, cash accumulation and costly external finance. Based on this model, we propose a new savings specification aimed at examining savings behavior in the presence of investment lumpiness and financial constraints. We then test a key prediction of our model, namely, that under costly external finance, savings-cash flow sensitivities vary significantly by investment regime. We make use of a panel of firms from transition and developed economies to estimate the new savings regression which controls for investment spikes and periods of inactivity. Our findings confirm the validity of the model's prediction

External Sovereign Debt in a Monetary Union: Bailouts and the Role of Corruption

We build a tractable stylized model of external sovereign debt and endogenous international interest rates. In corrupt economies with rent-seeking groups stealing public resources, a politico-economic equilibrium is characterized by permanent Öscal impatience which leads to excessive issuing of sovereign bonds. External creditors envision the corrupt economyís Öscal impatience and buy its bonds at higher interest rates. In turn, this interest-rate increase exacerbates the problem of oversupplying debt, leading the economy to a perfect-foresight trap. In incorrupt countries which have entered a high-interest-rate/high debt-GDP-ratio trap because an immediately recent disaster has caused a sudden jump to a high outstanding debt-GDP ratio, we show that bailout plans with controlled interest rates can help in reducing debt-GDP ratios after some time. On the contrary, under corruption, we show that bailouts are ine§ective unless rent-seeking groups are eradicated.sovereign debt, world interest rates, international lending, rent seeking.