On the Nature and Consequences of Output Volatility

本研究的目的是分析 国家产出和生产效率的波动。 的 该项目的第一部分将侧重于开发一个理论 一般均衡模型，其中产出波动导致 较低的经济增长。 已经确定，在一个 如果企业必须致力于技术，那么 经济中更大的可变性可能导致产出减少。 这 重要成果将通过以下方式扩展到增长情况 制定了一个从实践中学习的内生增长模式。 理论结果的支持将通过扩展 初步的实证研究表明， 真实的国民生产总值增长的平均数和方差之间的关系。 该项目的第二部分涉及一个经验性的 第一部分中开发的理论模型的调查， 这将侧重于详细研究工厂一级的数据， 美国汽车工业。 该数据集已经被 收集，包含详细的每周工厂级数据， 从1972年到1983年，大约有50家装配厂。 这些数据将用于估计成本函数的形式 为了了解产出波动对 生产效率。 这项研究很重要，因为了解这种关系 技术特征与产出波动性之间的关系 仍然是研究经济波动的核心。 不 例如，公司是否抑制了潜在的波动性， 此外，目前还不清楚， 技术导致了这种行为，以及产出波动如何 影响企业的生产力。

The purpose of this research is to analyze the link between the volatility in national output and productive efficiency. The first part of the project will focus on developing a theoretical general-equilibrium-model in which output volatility leads to lower economic growth. It has already been established that in a static setting that if firms must commit to technology, then higher variability in the economy can lead to lower output. This important result will be extended to a growth situation by formulating a model of endogenous growth with learning-by-doing. Support for the theoretical results will be provided by expanding on the preliminary empirical work which shows a strong negative relationship between the average and variance of real GNP growth. The second part of the project involves an empirical investigation of the theoretical models developed in part one, which will focus on a detailed study of plant-level data in the U.S. automobile industry. The data set, which has already been collected, contains detailed weekly plant-level data for approximately fifty assembly plants for the period 1972 to 1983. These data will be used to estimate the form of the cost function in order to understand the effect of output volatility on productive efficiency. This research is important because understanding the relationship between the characteristics of technology and output volatility remains central to the study of economic fluctuations. It is not clear for example whether firms dampen underlying volatility or magnify it. Also, it is very unclear as to what aspects of technology lead to such behavior and how output volatility affects productivity of the firm.