Quantitative Economics
Journal Of The Econometric Society
Edited by: Stéphane Bonhomme • Print ISSN: 1759-7323 • Online ISSN: 1759-7331
Quantitative Economics: Nov, 2023, Volume 14, Issue 4
Capital Reallocation and the Cyclicality of Aggregate Productivity
https://doi.org/10.3982/QE1892
p. 1337-1365
Russell W. Cooper, Immo Schott
Capital reallocation between firms is procyclical and leads to variations in measured aggregate productivity. In this paper, we ask how much of the cyclical variation in measured productivity is the consequence of capital reallocation. We build a heterogeneous‐firm model to study the effects of exogenous shocks to total factor productivity (TFP) and to the costs of reallocation. These shocks cause an endogenous cyclicality of measured aggregate productivity. Only a model driven by exogenous TFP shocks is able to generate both data‐consistent cyclical movements in reallocation and sizeable variations in measured aggregate productivity. We find that capital reallocation does not play a major role in amplifying aggregate productivity variations over the business cycle.
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Supplemental Material
Supplement to "Capital Reallocation and the Cyclicality of Aggregate Productivity"
Russell W. Cooper and Immo Schott
This zip file contains the replication files for the manuscript.
Journal News
March 5, 2024
Announcing the New Journal Editors
The terms of the Editors of the Econometric Society's three journals end June 30, 2025. We are pleased to announce the incoming Editors and to thank the outgoing Editors for their excellent and continuing service.
Econometrica: Since 2019, Guido Imbens has served as the 14th Editor of Econometrica. On July 1, 2025, Marina Halac will become the Editor.
Quantitative Economics: Stéphane Bonhomme has been the Editor of Quantitative Economics since 2021. His successor will be Bernard Salanié.
Theoretical Economics: The Editor of Theoretical Economics since 2021 has been Simon Board. Taking over for him in July 2025 will be Federico Echenique.
Guido, Stéphane, and Simon have been outstanding Editors. We are grateful to them for the work they have done and will continue to do, and we look forward to further congratulating them next year. We believe Marina, Bernard, and Federico will be outstanding successors and we thank them in advance for their service.
Finally, we are grateful to Larry Samuelson for chairing all three search committees, and we thank the search committee members for their hard and fruitful work:
Econometrica: Christian Dustmann, Lars Hansen, Alessandro Lizzeri, George Mailath, Ariel Pakes, Helene Rey, and Elie Tamer.
QE: Kate Ho, Michael Keane, Felix Kubler, Whitney Newey, and Frank Schorfheide.
TE: Jeff Ely, Johannes Horner, Gilat Levy, Meg Meyer, and Ran Spiegler.
