The Role of Trade Credit and its Relation with Bank Loan and Inventory Investment: Study with Firm-level Data

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For more than half a century, inventory investment has attracted wide attention as a major cause of short-term macroeconomic fluctuations, and the mechanism involved have been the focus of many major studies. Yet microeconomists and business people familiar with corporate behavior frequently express misgivings about the enterprise.Using Japanese quarterly GDP inventory investment statistics both by commodity and by category, 1994-2010, I investigate the nature of quarterly inventory statistics and inventory investment behavior, and draw two conclusions. First, statisticians estimate the quarterly statistics under severe constraints, and their resulting figures incorporate seasonal variations which dominate the quarterly fluctuations. This fluctuations mostly disappears in annual data. Secondly, when I examine the inventory variations after the Lehman Shock in the autumn of 2008, I find neither a notable increase in inventory stock nor a long-run stock adjustment process.