Knowledge that Transforms

Characteristics of business cycles are quite different across developed countries. Real wages and working hours a re less sensitive to exogenous shocks in the United States than in Brit ain and Japan. Using a model with a microeconomic foundation, this paper provides an economic explanation of these differences. The cost of on-the-job training plays a crucial role. Workers seldom quit their jobs when the sunk training cost is high. In such economies, varianc es in employment and output become small and shocks tend to be absorbed by working hours and real wages. Thus, these characteristics do not necessarily indicate that the economy is more efficient.

Trade is sequential: Buyers arrive in batches, and each batch completes trade before the next arrives. Producers allocate the available supply among all potential batches of buyers. Inventories accumulate whenever a batch does not arrive. Shocks to cost and demand are serially independent. There is a stationary relationship between inventories and prices with the following properties. Larger beginning-of-period inventories tend to depress prices. Inventories are positively serially correlated. A unit increase in inventories reduces output by less than one unit. An increase in inventories leads to an increase in the price spread. Output tends to vary more than sales.