Evidence and Ideology in Macroeconomics: The Case of Investment Cycles

Claude Hillinger

Discussion Papers in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: The paper reports the principal findings of a long term research project on the description and explanation of business cycles. The research strongly confirmed the older view that business cycles have large systematic components that take the form of investment cycles. These quasi-periodic movements can be represented as low order, stochastic, dynamic processes with complex eigenvalues. Specifically, there is a fixed investment cycle of about 8 years and an inventory cycle of about 4 years. Maximum entropy spectral analysis was employed for the description of the cycles and continuous time econometrics for the explanatory models. The central explanatory mechanism is the second order accelerator, which incorporates adjustment costs both in relation to the capital stock and the rate of investment. By means of parametric resonance it was possible to show, both theoretically and empirically how cycles aggregate from the micro to the macro level. The same mathematical tool was also used to explain the international convergence of cycles. I argue that the theory of investment cycles was abandoned for ideological, not for evidential reasons. Methodological issues are also discussed.

Keywords: business cycle; continuous time econometrics; investment cycle; inventory cycle; maximum entropy spectral analysis; parametric resonance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C32 C50 E22 E32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-mac
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/694/1/EANDIMUNICH.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lmu:muenec:694

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics Ludwigstr. 28, 80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tamilla Benkelberg ().