Topics in Business Cycle Analysis

这个项目解决了现代宏观经济经济周期理论和经验证据之间的两个主要不一致之处。货币供应的积极冲击压低了实际利率和名义利率，至少在短期内是这样。标准的一般均衡理论强调所谓的“粘性”名义工资和价格在解释货币政策的扩张性效应时所扮演的角色，它将预测相反的关系。这个项目决定了第一个不一致的解释是否在于另一个(可能是补充的)渠道，一个强调营运资本在生产过程中的作用以及货币供应变化的流动性影响的渠道。第二个矛盾是顺周期生产力现象。生产率往往在经济低迷时下降，在经济好转时上升。这似乎与新古典主义商业周期理论相矛盾，因为总产出的变化应该符合边际生产率递减规律，即随着就业劳动力的百分比下降(增加)，边际工人的生产率应该增加(减少)。这一项目确定了顺周期生产率是否是由于劳动力囤积和产能利用率变化的影响。该项目应该会为货币政策作为推动战后美国商业周期的推动力的作用提供新的见解。具体地说，它将提高我们对流动性效应作为货币传导机制核心组成部分的作用的理解。该项目分析了货币政策对金融市场的影响，以及观察到的短期利率、产出和货币供应之间的动态协同变动。该项目还提高了我们对平均生产率、工作时间和产出之间动态协同变化的理解。在这项研究中，重点是劳动力囤积和时变产能资本利用率在产生所观察到的劳动生产率的顺周期性和索洛残差方面所起的作用。这反过来又导致了对这些现象如何影响现有对技术冲击在产生经济波动中的作用的估计的调查。

This project addresses two major inconsistencies between modern macroeconomic theories of business cycles and the empirical evidence. Positive shocks in the money supply depress both real and nominal interest rates, at least in the short run. Standard general equilibrium theory, with its emphasis on the alleged role of "sticky" nominal wages and prices in explaining the expansionary effects of monetary policy, would predict the opposite relationship. This project determines whether or not the explanation for this first inconsistency lies in an alternative (possibly complementary) channel, one which emphasizes the role of working capital in the production process and the liquidity effects of changes in the money supply. The second inconsistency is the phenomenon of procyclical productivity. Productivity tends to fall in downturns and rise in upturns. This seems to contradict neoclassical theories of business cycles because changes in aggregate output should conform to the law of diminishing marginal productivity, i.e., as the percentage of the labor force employed declines (increases), the productivity of the marginal worker should increase (decrease). This project determines whether or not procyclical productivity is due to the effect of labor hoarding and changes in capacity utilization. The project should provide new insights into the role of monetary policy as an impulse to postwar US business cycles. Specifically, it will improve our understanding of the role of liquidity effects as central components of the monetary transmission mechanism. The project analyzes the impact of monetary policy on financial markets and the observed dynamic co- movements between short term interest rates, output and the money supply. The project also improves our understanding of the dynamic co-movements between average productivity, hours worked and output. In this research the focus is on the role which labor hoarding and time varying capacity capital utilization rates play in generating the observed procyclicality of labor productivity and the Solow residual. This in turn leads to an investigation of how these phenomena impact on existing estimates of the role of technology shocks in generating economic fluctuations.