Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/89570 
Year of Publication: 
2006
Series/Report no.: 
LEM Working Paper Series No. 2005/04
Publisher: 
Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Pisa
Abstract: 
In this paper, we present an evolutionary model of industry dynamics yielding endogenous business cycles with 'Keynesian' features. The model describes an economy composed of firms and consumers/workers. Firms belong to two industries. The first one performs R&D and produces heterogeneous machine tools. Firms in the second industry invest in new machines and produce a homogenous consumption good. Consumers sell their labor and fully consume their income. In line with the empirical literature on investment patterns, we assume that the investment decisions by firms are lumpy and constrained by their financial structures. Moreover, drawing from behavioral theories of the firm, we assume boundedly rational expectation formation. Simulation results show that the model is able to deliver self-sustaining patterns of growth characterized by the presence of endogenous business cycles. The model can also replicate the most important stylized facts concerning micro- and macro-economic dynamics. Indeed, we find that investment is more volatile than GDP; consumption is less volatile than GDP; investment, consumption and change in stocks are procyclical and coincident variables; employment is procyclical; unemployment rate is countercyclical; firm size distributions are skewed but depart from log-normality; firm growth distributions are tent-shaped.
Subjects: 
Evolutionary Dynamics
Agent-Based Computational Economics
Animal Spirits
Lumpy Investment
Output Fluctuations
Endogenous Business Cycles
JEL: 
C15
C22
C49
E17
E22
E32
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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