This paper proposes a unique model of capacity utilization in which the firm varies capacity utilization by a variable number of shifts when facing demand fluctuations. In the long run, the firm optimally chooses a capacity level based on expected demand conditions. In the short run, when facing...

Productivity rises in booms and falls in recessions. There are four main explanations for this procyclical productivity: (i) procyclical technology shocks, (ii) widespread imperfect competition and increasing returns, (iii) variable utilization of inputs over the cycle, and (iv) resource...

In der modernen Konjunkturtheorie sind Konjunkturzyklen als Schwankungen des Auslastungsgrades des gesamtwirtschaftlichen Produktionspotentials definiert. Das ifo Institut veröffentlicht im Rahmen des ifo Konjunkturtests originäre vierteljährliche Daten über die Kapazitätsauslastung im...

Die deutsche Konjunktur hat sich deutlich abgekuehlt. Das reale Bruttoinlandsprodukt duerfte im ersten Halbjahr 2001 nur noch um 1,3% ueber dem Vorjahr gelegen haben. Ursaechlich dafuer war zum einen die Verlangsamung der Weltkonjunktur und zum anderen der Kaufkraftentzug bei den privaten...

By historical standards, the U.S. economy has experienced a period of remarkable stability since the mid-1980s. One explanation attributes the diminished variability of economic activity to information-technology-led improvements in inventory management. Our results, however, indicate that the...

Labor productivity (LP) in the United States has gone from being procyclical to acyclical since the mid-1980s. Using industry-level data, this paper first shows that total factor productivity (TFP), which is LP net of capital deepening, has also become much less correlated with output as well as...

This paper presents accounting decompositions of changes in aggregate labor and capital productivity. Our simplest decomposition breaks changes in an aggregate productivity ratio into two components: A mean component, which captures common changes to firm factor productivity ratios, and a...

The U.S. economy continues to be characterized by a persistently-high rate of unemployment, with at least another three years before attainment of the pre-recession unemployment rate.Six significant structural trends are identified and their impacts discerned. The pernicious impact of...

The postwar U.S. business cycle is characterized by positive comovement of employment and output across sectors. It has been argued that multi-sector growth models are inconsistent with this observation when changes in relative productivities are the main source of fluctuations. We suggest that...

Do economic downturns provide a long term boost to the growth of potential output? The answer, based on an examination of Depression era experience, is nuanced. TFP growth across the 1930s resulted from the confluence of three tributaries. The first was the continuing high rate of TFP growth...