New Economics Papers
on Dynamic General Equilibrium
Issue of 2005‒08‒28
two papers chosen by



  1. Is lumpy investment really irrelevant for the business cycle? By Tommy Sveen; Lutz Weinke
  2. Weak Scale Effects in Growth Models By Juergen Antony

  1. By: Tommy Sveen (Norges Bank); Lutz Weinke (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
    Abstract: New-Keynesian (NK) models can only account for the dynamic effects of monetary policy shocks if it is assumed that aggregate capital accumulation is much smoother than it would be the case under frictionless firm-level investment, as discussed in Woodford (2003, Ch. 5). We find that lumpy investment, when combined with price stickiness and market power of firms, can rationalize this assumption. Our main result is in stark contrast with the conclusions obtained by Thomas (2002) in the context of a real business cycle (RBC) model. We use our model to explain the economic mechanism behind this difference in the predictions of RBC and NK theory.
    Keywords: Lumpy investment, Sticky prices
    JEL: E22 E31 E32
    Date: 2005–08–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bno:worpap:2005_06&r=dge
  2. By: Juergen Antony (University of Augsburg, Department of Economics)
    Abstract: Growth models of the second generation type, e.g. the Jones (1995) or Young (1998) model, all exhibit a so called weak scale effect in per capita production, i.e. larger economies should have a higher per capita production than smaller economies. However, in an open economy context the scale of the economy is less important because countries can participate in the scale of other countries through trade. This paper develops a simple open economy growth model of the second generation type which shows the relevance of the scale of the trading partners for per capita production. This model is empirically tested using time series for the G7 countries and alternatively a cross section of 80 countries for the year 2000. The scale of these economies is measured by their own scale as well as the scale of their major trading partners. The results show that there is a significant effect of the own scale and the scale of the trading partners on per capita production. Additionally the paper provides a theoretical model that shows the relevance of the weak scale effect in explaining wage inequality between different types of workers.
    Keywords: growth and scale effects, international trade
    JEL: O47 F43 F12
    Date: 2005–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aug:augsbe:0276&r=dge

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