Heterogeneous Firms and the Micro Origins of Aggregate Fluctuations PDF Download

Author: Glenn Magerman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Julian Di Giovanni
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business enterprises
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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This paper uses a database covering the universe of French firms for the period 1990--2007 to provide a forensic account of the role of individual firms in generating aggregate fluctuations. We set up a simple multi-sector model of heterogeneous firms selling to multiple markets to motivate a theoretically-founded decomposition of firms' annual sales growth rate into different components. We find that the firm-specific component contributes substantially to aggregate sales volatility, mattering about as much as the components capturing shocks that are common across firms within a sector or country. We then decompose the firm-specific component to provide evidence on two mechanisms that generate aggregate fluctuations from microeconomic shocks highlighted in the recent literature: (i) when the firm size distribution is fat-tailed, idiosyncratic shocks to large firms directly contribute to aggregate fluctuations; and (ii) aggregate fluctuations can arise from idiosyncratic shocks due to input-output linkages across the economy. Firm linkages are approximately three times as important as the direct effect of firm shocks in driving aggregate fluctuations.

Author: Julieta Caunedo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Electronic dissertations
Languages : en
Pages : 158

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"Essays on Heterogeneity, Irreversibility and Aggregate Fluctuations" explores the connections between micro structure and technologies available to the agents operating in the economy and the dynamic of aggregate output and productivity. The thesis aims at further understanding the linkages between investment decisions of heterogeneous firms, the industry structure, and the aggregate dynamic of the economy. The hypothesis explored in this dissertation is that the dynamic of the industry structure, the patterns of selection of firms and investment within an industry bear information as of the efficiency with which the economy operates. The thesis consist of three essays organized in chapters. Chapter I, "Efficiency with Equilibrium Marginal Product Dispersion and Firm Selection" investigates conditions under which reductions in marginal product of capital dispersion induce Pareto improving allocations. The main result is that it is possible for allocations that display higher marginal product dispersion to be closer to the efficient one than allocations with lower marginal product dispersion. Chapter II, "Industry Dynamics, Investment and Business Cycles" investigates the quantitative implications of irreversibilities in investment for aggregate productivity. The main result of the essay is that for a calibrated economy to the US manufacturing sector, efficiency losses associated to firm selection are quantitatively more important than those associated to lower equilibrium dispersion in marginal products, i.e. capital reallocation. Chapter III, "Aggregate Fluctuations and the Industry Structure of the US Economy" documents changes in the input matrix of the US economy, and analyzes its implications for the relevance of sector specific and neutral shocks in aggregate fluctuations. The main finding is that an economy where the input output entries are allowed to fluctuate as in the data generates larger amplification of shocks and a stronger role for neutral shocks than a comparable economy with a fixed input output structure.

Author: Tatsuro Senga
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 135

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In the second chapter, "Default Risk and Aggregate Fluctuations in an Economy with Production Heterogeneity," with Aubhik Khan and Julia K. Thomas, I study an economy where firms have persistent differences in productivities, capital, and debt or financial assets. Investment is funded by retained earnings and non-contingent debt. Because firms may default on their loans, the unit cost of borrowing rises with the debt a firm undertakes and falls with its collateral. This drives an inefficient allocation of capital; on average, large firms with more collateral invest more than do small firms with less collateral. In response to a credit shock worsening firms' cash positions, the model predicts a sharp response consistent with several aspects of the 2007 U.S. recession. Measured TFP falls over several periods, as do employment, investment and GDP. The subsequent recovery is gradual given slow recoveries in TFP, aggregate capital, and the measure and distribution of firms. In the third chapter, "Uncertainty Shocks and Liquidity Crisis with Adverse Selection," I study the impact of uncertainty shocks in an economy with asymmetric information in the asset market. Firms are heterogeneous in productivity, and they finance investment by issuing long-term, non-contingent loans. Each lender underwrites and securitizes loans in a market where households participate as buyers without knowing the quality of underlying assets. This adverse selection problem worsens following a shock to the dispersion of firm productivity. Trading volumes and the prices for securitized loans fall, and this in turn adversely affects investment at the firm level.

Author: Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business cycles
Languages : en
Pages : 28

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This paper investigates the role that the entry and exit of heterogeneous firms plays in shaping aggregate fluctuations in economic activity. In so doing, it develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model in which procyclical entry and countercyclical exit along a real business cycle lead to endogenous cyclical movements in average firm productivity. These movements stem from a composition effect due to the reallocation of market shares among firms with different levels of efficiency and affect the propagation of exogenous technological shocks. Numerical analysis suggests that existing models with representative firms may overstate the actual role of procyclical entry and exit in imperfectly competitive markets as a propagation mechanism of exogenous technology shocks. The reason is that procyclical entry and countercyclical exit disproportionately involve less efficiency firms whose impact on aggregate economic activity is hampered by their smaller size -- National Bureau of Economic Research web site.

Author: Andrew B. Bernard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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This paper examines how country, industry and firm characteristics interact in general equilibrium to determine nations' responses to trade liberalization. When firms possess heterogeneous productivity, countries differ in relative factor abundance and industries vary in factor intensity, falling trade costs induce reallocations of resources both within and across industries and countries. These reallocations generate substantial job turnover in all sectors, spur relatively more creative destruction in comparative advantage industries than comparative disadvantage industries, and magnify ex ante comparative advantage to create additional welfare gains from trade. The relative ascendance of high-productivity firms within industries boosts aggregate productivity and drives down consumer prices. In contrast with the neoclassical model, these price declines dampen and can even reverse the real wage losses of scarce factors as countries liberalize.

Author: Xavier Gabaix
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business cycles
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Abstract: This paper proposes that idiosyncratic firm-level fluctuations can explain an important part of aggregate shocks, and provide a microfoundation for aggregate productivity shocks. Existing research has focused on using aggregate shocks to explain business cycles, arguing that individual firm shocks average out in aggregate. I show that this argument breaks down if the distribution of firm sizes is fat-tailed, as documented empirically. The idiosyncratic movements of the largest 100 firms in the US appear to explain about one third of variations in output and the Solow residual. This "granular" hypothesis suggests new directions for macroeconomic research, in particular that macroeconomic questions can be clarified by looking at the behavior of large firms. This paper's ideas and analytical results may also be useful to think about the fluctuations of other economic aggregates, such as exports or the trade balance

Author: Henri Luomaranta
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Administrative registers maintained by statistical offices on vastly heterogeneous firms have much untapped potential to reveal details on sources of productivity of firms and economies alike. It has been proposed that firm-level shocks can go a long way in explaining aggregate fluctuations. Based on novel monthly frequency data, idiosyncratic shocks are able to explain a sizable share of the Finnish economic fluctuations, providing support to the granular hypothesis. The global financial crisis of 2007-2008 has challenged the field of economic forecasting, and nowcasting has become an active field. This thesis shows that the information content of firm-level sales and truck traffic can be used for nowcasting GDP figures, by using a specific mixture of machine learning algorithms. The agency problem lies at the heart of much of economic theory. Based on a unique dataset linking owners, CEOs and firms, and exploiting plausibly exogenous variations in the separation of ownership and control, agency costs seem to be an important determinant of firm productivity. Furthermore, the effect appear strongest in medium-sized firms. Enterprise group structures might have important implications on the voluminous literature on firm size, as large share of SME employment can be attributed to affiliates of large business groups. Within firm variation suggests that enterprise group affiliation has heterogeneous impacts depending on size, having strong positive impact on productivity of small firms, and negative impact on their growth. In terms of aggregate job creation, it is found that the independent small firms have contributed the most. The results in this thesis underline the benefits of paying attention to samples encompassing the total population of firms. Researchers should continue to explore the potential of rich administrative data sources at statistical offices and strive to strengthen the ties with data producers.

Author: Daron Acemoglu
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business cycles
Languages : en
Pages : 34

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This paper argues that in the presence of intersectoral input-output linkages, microeconomic idiosyncratic shocks may lead to aggregate fluctuations. In particular, it shows that, as the economy becomes more disaggregated, the rate at which aggregate volatility decays is determined by the structure of the network capturing such linkages. Our main results provide a characterization of this relationship in terms of the importance of different sectors as suppliers to their immediate customers as well as their role as indirect suppliers to chains of downstream sectors. Such higher-order interconnections capture the possibility of "cascade effects" whereby productivity shocks to a sector propagate not only to its immediate downstream customers, but also indirectly to the rest of the economy. Our results highlight that sizable aggregate volatility is obtained from sectoral idiosyncratic shocks only if there exists significant asymmetry in the roles that sectors play as suppliers to others, and that the "sparseness" of the input-output matrix is unrelated to the nature of aggregate fluctuations. Keywords: business cycle, aggregate volatility, diversification, input-output linkages, intersectoral network, cascades. JEL Classifications: C67, D57, E32.

Author: Andrea Ciani
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464815585
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Economic and social progress requires a diverse ecosystem of firms that play complementary roles. Making It Big: Why Developing Countries Need More Large Firms constitutes one of the most up-to-date assessments of how large firms are created in low- and middle-income countries and their role in development. It argues that large firms advance a range of development objectives in ways that other firms do not: large firms are more likely to innovate, export, and offer training and are more likely to adopt international standards of quality, among other contributions. Their particularities are closely associated with productivity advantages and translate into improved outcomes not only for their owners but also for their workers and for smaller enterprises in their value chains. The challenge for economic development, however, is that production does not reach economic scale in low- and middle-income countries. Why are large firms scarcer in developing countries? Drawing on a rare set of data from public and private sources, as well as proprietary data from the International Finance Corporation and case studies, this book shows that large firms are often born large—or with the attributes of largeness. In other words, what is distinct about them is often in place from day one of their operations. To fill the “missing top†? of the firm-size distribution with additional large firms, governments should support the creation of such firms by opening markets to greater competition. In low-income countries, this objective can be achieved through simple policy reorientation, such as breaking oligopolies, removing unnecessary restrictions to international trade and investment, and establishing strong rules to prevent the abuse of market power. Governments should also strive to ensure that private actors have the skills, technology, intelligence, infrastructure, and finance they need to create large ventures. Additionally, they should actively work to spread the benefits from production at scale across the largest possible number of market participants. This book seeks to bring frontier thinking and evidence on the role and origins of large firms to a wide range of readers, including academics, development practitioners and policy makers.