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Taking Stock: A Critical Assessment of Recent Research on Inventories

Taking Stock: A Critical Assessment of Recent Research on Inventories Abstract Empirical and theoretical aspects of inventory behavior became hot topics in the 1950s and early 1960s. No one seemed to notice the tension that was developing between the emerging macroeconomic and microeconomic views of inventories. Macroeconomists routinely thought of inventories as a destabilizing factor, yet the prevailing micro theory viewed inventories as a stabilizing factor. It was a fascinating question that was barely explored. Instead somewhat inexplicably, interest in inventories dried up, as if inventories were of minor economic significance and little intrinsic interest. By the early 1980s, then, economists once again knew something they had known in the 1950s: that inventory investment is of first-order importance in business cycles. But they were also beginning to realize that the standard production-smoothing/buffer-stock model of inventories was in deep trouble. This paper focuses on developments since that realization. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Economic Perspectives American Economic Association

Taking Stock: A Critical Assessment of Recent Research on Inventories

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References (40)

Publisher
American Economic Association
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by the American Economic Association
Subject
Articles
ISSN
0895-3309
DOI
10.1257/jep.5.1.73
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract Empirical and theoretical aspects of inventory behavior became hot topics in the 1950s and early 1960s. No one seemed to notice the tension that was developing between the emerging macroeconomic and microeconomic views of inventories. Macroeconomists routinely thought of inventories as a destabilizing factor, yet the prevailing micro theory viewed inventories as a stabilizing factor. It was a fascinating question that was barely explored. Instead somewhat inexplicably, interest in inventories dried up, as if inventories were of minor economic significance and little intrinsic interest. By the early 1980s, then, economists once again knew something they had known in the 1950s: that inventory investment is of first-order importance in business cycles. But they were also beginning to realize that the standard production-smoothing/buffer-stock model of inventories was in deep trouble. This paper focuses on developments since that realization.

Journal

Journal of Economic Perspectives – American Economic Association

Published: Feb 1, 1991

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