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Inventory (Dis)Investment, Internal Finance Fluctuations, and the Business Cycle

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Author Info
Robert E. Carpenter (Emory University)
Steven M. Fazzari (Washington University and the Jerome Levy Economics Insititute)
Bruce C. Petersen (Washington University)

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Abstract

A well-known but under-emphasized feature of the business cycle is that the flow of internal finance is highly procyclical. We argue that finance constraints lead firms to offset a large proportion of internal finance fluctuations through inventory (dis)investment. We construct three panels of quarterly firm data, each of which contains a large fraction of aggregate inventories and covers a major inventory cycle. Our findings show that the impact of internal finance on inventory investment is greater for small firms than large, consistent with the existence of finance constraints. Internal finance, however, is also economically important for large firms. These results explain part of the large cyclical amplitude of inventory investment. Furthermore, heterogeneity in our results across time, especially between the 1981-82 recession and the 1990-91 recession, helps explain differences in the composition of aggregate investment shortfalls during contractions.

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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Macroeconomics with number 9401001.

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Length: 29 pages
Date of creation: 12 Jan 1994
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Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpma:9401001

Note: 2 word for windows binary files. File 1 has 29 pages text with one table enclosed. File 2 has 5 tables in 4 pages. 3 figures accompany this paper but are not enclosed. They are available upon request from Carpenter
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E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics

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  1. Hubbard, R Glenn & Kashyap, Anil K, 1992. "Internal Net Worth and the Investment Process: An Application to U.S. Agriculture," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 506-34, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Gertler, Mark, 1988. "Financial Structure and Aggregate Economic Activity: An Overview," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 20(3), pages 559-88, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Richard W. Kopcke, 1993. "The determinants of business investment: has capital spending been surprisingly low?," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Jan, pages 3-31.
  4. Fair, Ray C., 1989. "The production-smoothing model is alive and well," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 353-370, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Bernanke, Ben & Gertler, Mark, 1989. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 14-31, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 1993. "Monetary policy, business cycles and the behavior of small manufacturing firms," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 93-4, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
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  7. Blinder, Alan S & Maccini, Louis J, 1991. " The Resurgence of Inventory Research: What Have We Learned?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 5(4), pages 291-328.
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  8. Ramey, Valerie A, 1989. "Inventories as Factors of Production and Economic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 338-54, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Steven M. Fazzari & Bruce C. Petersen, 1993. "Working Capital and Fixed Investment: New Evidence on Financing Constraints," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 24(3), pages 328-342, Autumn. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Anil K. Kashyap & Owen A. Lamont & Jeremy C. Stein, 1993. "Credit conditions and the cyclical behavior of inventories," Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues 93-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
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  11. Jeffrey A. Miron & Stephen P. Zeldes, . "Seasonality, Cost Shocks and the Production Smoothing Model of Inventories," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 01-87, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
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  12. Whited, Toni M., 1991. "Investment and financial asset accumulation," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 1(4), pages 307-334, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Donald P. Morgan, 1991. "Will just-in-time inventory techniques dampen recessions?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Mar, pages 21-33. [Downloadable!]
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  15. Blinder, Alan S & Maccini, Louis J, 1991. "Taking Stock: A Critical Assessment of Recent Research on Inventories," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 73-96, Winter. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Kashyap, Anil K & Stein, Jeremy C & Wilcox, David W, 1993. "Monetary Policy and Credit Conditions: Evidence from the Composition of External Finance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 78-98, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Calomiris, Charles W & Hubbard, R Glenn, 1990. "Firm Heterogeneity, Internal Finance, and 'Credit Rationing.'," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(399), pages 90-104, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. Kahn, James A, 1987. "Inventories and the Volatility of Production," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 667-79, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Blinder, Alan S, 1982. "Inventories and Sticky Prices: More on the Microfoundations of Macroeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 334-48, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Lucas, Robert E., 1977. "Understanding business cycles," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 7-29, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Eichenbaum, Martin, 1989. "Some Empirical Evidence on the Production Level and Production Cost Smoothing Models of Inventory Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 853-64, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  23. Ghali, Moheb A, 1987. "Seasonality, Aggregation and the Testing of the Production Smoothing Hypothesis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 464-69, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  24. Michael Devereux & Fabio Schiantarelli, 1989. "Investment, Finacial Factors and Cash Flow: Evidence From UK Panel Data," NBER Working Papers 3116, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  25. West, Kenneth D, 1986. "A Variance Bounds Test of the Linear Quadratic Inventory Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(2), pages 374-401, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  26. Dufour, Jean-Marie, 1993. "The importance of seasonality in inventory models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1-2), pages 129-133. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  27. Oliner, Stephen D & Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1992. "Sources of the Financing Hierarchy for Business Investment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(4), pages 643-54, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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