The Macroeconomics of Irreversibility

Isaac Baley, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Centre for Economic Policy Research and Julio Andrés Blanco, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

We study aggregate capital dynamics in an investment model with idiosyncratic productivity shocks, fixed capital adjustment costs, and irreversibility driven by a wedge between capital purchase and resale prices. We derive sufficient statistics that capture the role of investment frictions in aggregate capital fluctuations, measure these statistics using investment microdata, and exploit them to discipline the capital price wedge. Irreversibility doubles the persistence of capital fluctuations and is crucial for reconciling micro-level investment behavior with macroeconomic propagation.