Premium
Aggregate Dynamics in Lumpy Economies
Author(s) -
Baley Isaac,
Blanco Andrés
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
econometrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 16.7
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1468-0262
pISSN - 0012-9682
DOI - 10.3982/ecta17344
Subject(s) - economics , productivity , capital (architecture) , investment (military) , physical capital , capital intensity , monetary economics , aggregate (composite) , econometrics , stock (firearms) , dispersion (optics) , rigidity (electromagnetism) , macroeconomics , human capital , market economy , engineering , materials science , archaeology , politics , physics , optics , structural engineering , history , mechanical engineering , political science , law , composite material
How does an economy's capital respond to aggregate productivity shocks when firms make lumpy investments? We show that capital's transitional dynamics are structurally linked to two steady‐state moments: the dispersion of capital to productivity ratios—an indicator of capital misallocation—and the covariance of capital to productivity ratios with the time elapsed since their last adjustment—an indicator of asymmetric costs of upsizing and downsizing the capital stock. We compute these two sufficient statistics using data on the size and frequency of investment of Chilean plants. The empirical values indicate significant effects of aggregate productivity shocks and favor investment models with a strong downsizing rigidity and random opportunities for free adjustments.