scholarly journals Putting the Cycle Back into Business Cycle Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Beaudry ◽  
Dana Galizia ◽  
Franck Portier

Are business cycles mainly a response to persistent exogenous shocks, or do they instead reflect a strong endogenous mechanism which produces recurrent boom-bust phenomena? In this paper we present evidence in favor of the second interpretation and we highlight the set of key elements that influence our answer. The elements that tend to favor this type of interpretation of business cycles are (i) slightly extending the frequency window one associates with business cycle phenomena, (ii) allowing for strategic complementarities across agents that arise due to financial frictions, and (iii) allowing for a locally unstable steady state in estimation. (JEL E22, E24, E23, E44)

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 664-683 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenichi Tamegawa

This paper introduces demand uncertainty and inventory into a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. We assume that firms must predict demand before production. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of several exogenous shocks on the model economy in our settings. A numerical simulation using our model shows the following results. When shocks that raise expected demand are given, inventory stocks increase because output exceeds demand. In the next period, firms release the inventory stock, reducing excess stock and decreasing output. Thus, inventory adjustment causes recession. This result implies that cyclical movement (economic boom and bust) continues until variables return to the steady state. Furthermore, we confirm that our model can reproduce stylized facts for inventory movements and enhance empirical fit relative to the model without inventory.


2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manoj Atolia ◽  
John Gibson ◽  
Milton Marquis

We examine the quantitative significance of financial frictions that reduce firms' access to credit in explaining asymmetric business cycles characterized by disproportionately severe downturns. Using rate spread data to calibrate the severity of these frictions, we successfully match several key features of U.S. data. Specifically, although output and consumption are relatively symmetric (with output being slightly more asymmetric), investment and hours worked display significant asymmetry over the business cycle. We also demonstrate that our financial frictions are capable of significantly amplifying adverse shocks during severe downturns. Although the data suggest that these frictions are only active occasionally, our results indicate that they are still a significant source of macroeconomic volatility over the business cycle.


2001 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Barnett

Mikhail Ivanovich Tugan-Baranovsky (1865–1919) has not unjustly been calle the greatest Russian economist of all time (Jasny 1972, p. 159). This neglecte the fact that he was born near Kharkov and towards the end of his life came to see the Ukraine as his homeland, but the evaluation itself is not so far from the truth. However, opinion about the precise importance of Tugan-Baranovsky work to the development of trade cycle analysis has varied widely. J. M. Keynes and A. H. Hansen were both highly respectful of Tugan's contribution. For example, in the Treatise on Money, Keynes wrote in regards to business cycle theory that he was “in strong sympathy with the school of writers … of which Tugan-Baranovski was the first and most original” (Keynes 1930, vol. 2, p. 100 In his 1951 work, Business Cycles and National Income, Hansen was enthusiastic describing Tugan as “cutting his way though the jungle to a new outlook” (Hansen 1951, p. 281). This suggests that some aspects of both British an American Keynesianism might have originated in Tugan's work, or at least bee influenced by it. W. W. Rostow was also impressed by Tugan's approach, statin that it “took business cycle analysis some distance beyond Juglar and Marx” (Rostow 1990, p. 261).


2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 544-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger E.A. Farmer

This paper distinguishes two kinds of endogenous business cycle models: EBC1 models, which display dynamic indeterminacy, and EBC2 models, which display steady-state indeterminacy. Both strands of the literature have their origins in the sunspot literature that developed at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1980s. I argue that EBC1 models are part of the evolution of modern macroeconomics that has classical roots dating back to the 1920s. EBC2 models provide a microfoundation for one of the most important ideas to emerge from Keynes's (1936)General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money: that high involuntary unemployment can persist as part of the steady-state equilibrium of a market economy.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Pablo Mejía-Reyes

This paper aims to document expansions and recessions characteristics for 17 states of Mexico over the period 1993-2006 by using a classical business cycle approach. We use the manufacturing production index for each state as the business cycle indicator since it is the only output measure available on a monthly basis. According to this approach, we analyse asymmetries in mean, volatility and duration as well as synchronisation over the business cycle regimes (expansions and recessions) for each case. Our results indicate that recessions are less persistent and more volatile (in general) than expansions in most Mexican states; yet, there is no clear cut evidence on mean asymmetries. In turn, there seems to be strong links between the business cycle regimes within the Northern and Central regions of the country and between states with similar industrialisation patterns, although it is difficult to claim that a national business cycle exists.


2014 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 993-1074 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Beaudry ◽  
Franck Portier

There is a widespread belief that changes in expectations may be an important independent driver of economic fluctuations. The news view of business cycles offers a formalization of this perspective. In this paper we discuss mechanisms by which changes in agents' information, due to the arrival of news, can cause business cycle fluctuations driven by expectational change, and we review the empirical evidence aimed at evaluating their relevance. In particular, we highlight how the literature on news and business cycles offers a coherent way of thinking about aggregate fluctuations, while at the same time we emphasize the many challenges that must be addressed before a proper assessment of the role of news in business cycles can be established. (JEL D83, D84, E13, E32, O33)


2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 1069-1090 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott J. Dressler ◽  
Erasmus K. Kersting

Equilibrium indeterminacy due to economies of scale (ES) in financial intermediation is quantitatively examined in a monetary business-cycle environment. Financial intermediation provides deposits that serve as a substitute for currency to purchase consumption, and depositing decisions are susceptible to nonfundamental shocks to confidence. The analysis considers various assumptions on nominal rigidities and the timing of deposit decisions. The results suggest that indeterminacy arises for small ES, and the resulting confidence shocks qualitatively mimic monetary shocks. A calibration exercise concludes that U.S. economic volatility from this nonfundamental source has increased over time while volatility from fundamental sources has decreased.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Alassa Mfouapon ◽  
◽  
Fabien Sundjo ◽  

This paper aims at conducting a thorough analysis of business cycles in Cameroon by statistically assessing their main characteristics. The analysis is carried out by considering the three dimensions of macroeconomic fluctuations. By assessing output volatility, light on the sensitivity of the economy to exogenous shocks as well as to endogenous sources of instability is shed. Likewise, analysing the co-movements of aggregate variables of interest helps in understanding the extent to which the observed fluctuations relate to other aggregates in the economy and hence, the main forces driving the dynamics of this economy. Eventually, more light could be shed on macroeconomic dynamics by analysing the timing and persistence of business cycles. Overall, such analysis is conducted using basic statistical tools commonly used in the empirical literature on business cycles. These are the standard deviation as a measure of volatility, cross-correlations as a means of analysing co-movements and auto-correlations as measures of persistence. The main limitation in this study is the linear consideration of observed data. In fact, many macroeconomic and financial time-series that are used in quantitative macroeconomic models are subject to a number of regime-switching in reality. This fact needs to be taken into account in the subsequent research


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