Production and Inventory Dynamics under Ambiguity Aversion

Yulei Luo (), Jun Nie, Xiaowen Wang and Eric Young

No RWP 21-05, Research Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City

Abstract: We propose a production-cost smoothing model with Knightian uncertainty due to ambiguity aversion to study the joint behavior of production, inventories, and sales. Our model can explain four facts that previous studies find difficult to account for simultaneously: (i) the high volatility of production relative to sales, (ii) the low ratio of inventory-investment volatility to sales volatility, (iii) the positive correlation between sales and inventories, and (iv) the negative correlation between the inventory-to-sales ratio and sales. We find that the stock-out avoidance motive (Kahn 1987) emerges endogenously in our model, reconciling the long debate in the inventory literature over the production- cost smoothing and the stock-out avoidance models.

Keywords: Ambiguity Aversion; Robustness; Knightian Uncertainty; Inventories; Production Cost Smoothing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 E21 F41 G15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 2021-08-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-mac, nep-opm, nep-ore and nep-upt
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedkrw:93094

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DOI: 10.18651/RWP2021-05

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