Machine Replacement and the Business Cycle: Lumps and Bumps
Machine Replacement and the Business Cycle: Lumps and Bumps
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DOI：
10.1257/aer.89.4.921
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发表时间：
1995-09
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Russell Cooper;J. Haltiwanger;Laura Power
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文献类型：
--
作者：
Russell Cooper;J. Haltiwanger;Laura Power
这篇文章探讨了由于工厂资本存量的离散变化而导致的投资的周期性波动。为此，我们将重点放在机器更换问题上，在这个问题中，生产商决定是否用新的机器和设备来取代其全部现有的资本存量。这一决定是在一个随机的、动态的环境中做出的，这使得我们能够描述不稳定的投资与总体经济状况之间的关系。我们的理论结果得到了工厂层面块状投资动态的数值和经验分析的补充，以及与之相关的总体影响。这种动态令人惊讶地丰富，因为它们代表了更替周期、资本存量年龄的横截面分布和总体经济状态之间的相互作用。对这些动态的实证分析基于1972-91年期间纵向研究数据库(LRD)的厂级投资数据。总体而言，我们发现，在经济活动旺盛的时期，投资活动不稳定的频率更高，资本越老的可能性越大。这些实证结果与我们理论模型的预测是一致的。然而，预测的总投资路径忽略了非平坦风险和资本存量年龄的横截面分布之间的相互作用，与实际总投资吻合得很好。然而，忽略横截面分布的波动，在预测总投资大幅波动后的总投资变化时，可能会产生可预见的重大误差。
This paper explores cyclical fluctuations in investment due to discrete changes in the plant's stock of capital. To do so, we focus on a machine replacement problem in which a producer decides whether to replace its entire existing stock of capital with new machinery and equipment. This decision is undertaken in a stochastic, dynamic environment which allows us to characterize the relationship between lumpy investment and the state of the aggregate economy. Our theoretical results are supplemented by numerical and empirical analyses of the dynamics of lumpy investment at the plant level and the associated aggregate implications. The dynamics are surprisingly rich since they represent the interaction between a replacement cycle, the cross sectional distribution of the age of the capital stock and the state of the aggregate economy. The empirical analysis of these dynamics is based on plant level investment data for the Longitudinal Research Database (LRD) for the 1972-91 period. Overall, we find that the frequency of lumpy investment activity is higher during periods of high economic activity and more likely the older is the capital. These empirical results are consistent with the predictions of our theoretical model. Nonetheless, the predicted path of aggregate investment that neglects the interaction of the non-flat hazard and the cross sectional distribution of the age of the capital stock tracks actual aggregate investment quite well. However, ignoring the fluctuations in the cross sectional distribution can yield predictable nontrivial errors in forecasting changes in aggregate investment in periods following large swings in aggregate investment.