Following the real option literature, whether or not uncertainty shocks drive business cycles depends on the degree of adjustment frictions. The more plants freeze and remain inactive in response to increased uncertainty, the stronger the adverse effects on the economic activity. Using quarterly...

The paper studies the interaction between cyclical uncertainty and investment in a stochastic real option framework where demand shifts stochastically between three different states, each with different rates of drift and volatility. In our setting the shifts are governed by a three-state Markov...