IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pen/papers/12-025.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Riskiness Choice and Endogenous Productivity Dispersion over the Business Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Can Tian

    (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract

Cross-sectional productivity dispersion is countercyclical, at the plant level and at the firm level. I incorporate a firm’s project choice decision into a firm dynamics model with business cycle features to explain this empirical .finding both qualitatively and quantitatively. In particular, all projects available have the same expected flow return and differ from one another only in the riskiness level. The endogenous option of exiting the market and limited funding for new investment jointly play an important role in motivating firms’ risk-taking behavior. The model predicts that relatively small firms are more likely to take risk and that the cross-sectional productivity dispersion, measured as the variance/standard deviation of firm-level profitability, is larger in recessions.

Suggested Citation

  • Can Tian, 2012. "Riskiness Choice and Endogenous Productivity Dispersion over the Business Cycle," PIER Working Paper Archive 12-025, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    • Handle: RePEc:pen:papers:12-025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economics.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/filevault/12-025.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Berger, David & Vavra, Joseph, 2018. "Dynamics of the U.S. price distribution," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 60-82.
    2. Nicholas Bloom & Max Floetotto & Nir Jaimovich & Itay Saporta†Eksten & Stephen J. Terry, 2018. "Really Uncertain Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(3), pages 1031-1065, May.
    3. Toshihiko Mukoyama & Yoonsoo Lee, 2008. "Entry, Exit, and Plant-level Dynamics over the Business Cycle," 2008 Meeting Papers 454, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 1994. "Monetary Policy, Business Cycles, and the Behavior of Small Manufacturing Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 309-340.
    5. Gian Luca Clementi & Berardino Palazzo, 2016. "Entry, Exit, Firm Dynamics, and Aggregate Fluctuations," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 1-41, July.
    6. Natarajan Balasubramanian & Jagadeesh Sivadasan, 2009. "Capital Resalability, Productivity Dispersion, and Market Structure," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(3), pages 547-557, August.
    7. Jeffrey Campbell, 1998. "Entry, Exit, Embodied Technology, and Business Cycles," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(2), pages 371-408, April.
    8. Jaimovich, Nir & Floetotto, Max, 2008. "Firm dynamics, markup variations, and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 1238-1252, October.
    9. Aubhik Khan & Julia K. Thomas, 2008. "Idiosyncratic Shocks and the Role of Nonconvexities in Plant and Aggregate Investment Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(2), pages 395-436, March.
    10. Ouyang, Min, 2009. "The scarring effect of recessions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 184-199, March.
    11. Matthias Kehrig, 2011. "The Cyclicality of Productivity Dispersion," 2011 Meeting Papers 484, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Daron Acemoglu & Ufuk Akcigit & Harun Alp & Nicholas Bloom & William Kerr, 2018. "Innovation, Reallocation, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(11), pages 3450-3491, November.
    13. Galina Vereshchagina & Hugo A. Hopenhayn, 2009. "Risk Taking by Entrepreneurs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1808-1830, December.
    14. Russell W. Cooper & John C. Haltiwanger, 2006. "On the Nature of Capital Adjustment Costs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(3), pages 611-633.
    15. N/A, 2009. "On the Recession," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 24(3), pages 253-253, May.
    16. Ruediger Bachmann & Giuseppe Moscarini, 2011. "Business Cycles and Endogenous Uncertainty," 2011 Meeting Papers 36, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Eisfeldt, Andrea L. & Rampini, Adriano A., 2006. "Capital reallocation and liquidity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 369-399, April.
    18. R?diger Bachmann & Steffen Elstner & Eric R. Sims, 2013. "Uncertainty and Economic Activity: Evidence from Business Survey Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 217-249, April.
    19. R?diger Bachmann & Ricardo J. Caballero & Eduardo M. R. A. Engel, 2013. "Aggregate Implications of Lumpy Investment: New Evidence and a DSGE Model," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 29-67, October.
    20. repec:bla:econom:v:71:y:2004:i:281:p:299-318 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Barton H. Hamilton, 2000. "Does Entrepreneurship Pay? An Empirical Analysis of the Returns to Self-Employment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 604-631, June.
    22. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    23. Dhawan, Rajeev, 2001. "Firm size and productivity differential: theory and evidence from a panel of US firms," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 269-293, March.
    24. Rüdiger Bachmann & Christian Bayer, 2011. "Uncertainty Business Cycles - Really?," NBER Working Papers 16862, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Vincenzo Quadrini, 2009. "Entrepreneurship in macroeconomics," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 295-311, June.
    26. Tobias J. Moskowitz & Annette Vissing-Jørgensen, 2002. "The Returns to Entrepreneurial Investment: A Private Equity Premium Puzzle?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 745-778, September.
    27. Hopenhayn, Hugo A, 1992. "Entry, Exit, and Firm Dynamics in Long Run Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 60(5), pages 1127-1150, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi & M. Hashem Pesaran & Alessandro Rebucci, 2014. "Uncertainty and Economic Activity: A Global Perspective," CESifo Working Paper Series 4736, CESifo Group Munich.
    2. Ryan A. Decker & Pablo N. D'Erasmo & Hernan Moscoso Boedo, 2016. "Market Exposure and Endogenous Firm Volatility over the Business Cycle," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 148-198, January.
    3. Mayumi Ojima & Junnosuke Shino & Kozo Ueda, 2014. "Buyer-Size Discounts and Inflation Dynamics," UTokyo Price Project Working Paper Series 017, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    4. Hikaru Saijo, 2014. "The Uncertainty Multiplier and Business Cycles," Working Papers e067, Tokyo Center for Economic Research.
    5. Hashem Pesaran & Ambrogio Cesa-Bianchi & Alessandro Rebucci, 2014. "Uncertainty and Economic Activity: A Global Perspective," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1407, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tian, Can, 2011. "Technology choice and endogenous productivity dispersion over the business cycles," MPRA Paper 34480, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 02 Nov 2011.
    2. Tian, Can, 2015. "Riskiness, endogenous productivity dispersion and business cycles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 227-249.
    3. Pavol Majher, 2015. "Firm entry and exit, investment irreversibility, and business cycle dynamics," Vienna Economics Papers 1513, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    4. Matthias Kehrig, 2011. "The Cyclicality of Productivity Dispersion," 2011 Meeting Papers 484, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Pavol Majher, 2015. "Firm entry and exit, investment irreversibility, and business cycle dynamics," Vienna Economics Papers vie1513, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    6. Nicholas Bloom & Max Floetotto & Nir Jaimovich & Itay Saporta†Eksten & Stephen J. Terry, 2018. "Really Uncertain Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(3), pages 1031-1065, May.
    7. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom, 2013. "Does Uncertainty Reduce Growth? Using Disasters as Natural Experiments," NBER Working Papers 19475, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Joseph Vavra & David Berger, 2013. "Pass-through Across Products and Time," 2013 Meeting Papers 452, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Masashige Hamano & Francesco Zanetti, 2017. "Endogenous Turnover and Macroeconomic Dynamics," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 263-279, October.
    10. Bachmann, Rüdiger & Bayer, Christian, 2013. "‘Wait-and-See’ business cycles?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 704-719.
    11. Joseph Vavra, 2014. "Inflation Dynamics and Time-Varying Volatility: New Evidence and an Ss Interpretation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(1), pages 215-258.
    12. Meier, Matthias, 2017. "Time to Build and the Business Cycle," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168059, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. Stephen J. Terry, 2017. "Alternative Methods for Solving Heterogeneous Firm Models," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(6), pages 1081-1111, September.
    14. Vasco M. Carvalho & Basile Grassi, 2019. "Large Firm Dynamics and the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1375-1425, April.
    15. Jae Sim & Egon Zakrajsek & Simon Gilchrist, 2010. "Uncertainty, Financial Frictions, and Investment Dynamics," 2010 Meeting Papers 1285, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Scott R Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Stephen J Terry, 2024. "Using Disasters to Estimate the Impact of Uncertainty," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(2), pages 720-747.
    17. Russell W. Cooper & Immo Schott, 2023. "Capital reallocation and the cyclicality of aggregate productivity," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), pages 1337-1365, November.
    18. Theodosios Dimopoulos & Stefano Sacchetto, 2014. "Merger Activity in Industry Equilibrium," GSIA Working Papers 2012-E47, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    19. N. Bloom, 2016. "Fluctuations in uncertainty," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 4.
    20. Christian Bayer & Ruediger Bachmann, 2009. "The Cross-section of Firms over the Business Cycle: New Facts and a DSGE Exploration," 2009 Meeting Papers 866, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Countercyclical Productivity Dispersion; Business Cycles; Firm Dynamics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pen:papers:12-025. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Administrator (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.