Can Uncorrelated Shocks Generate Aggregate Autocorrelation?: Business Cycle Persistence in a Model with Endogenous Growth and Fluctuations

This paper considers a model which incorporates Schumpeterian type growth into an otherwise standard RBC model similar to the one in Phillips & Wrase (2006). We consider a model with three sources of shocks. The first is a standard productivity shock. The second is a set of Schumpeterian innovation shocks which are industry specific and correspond to the results of an applied R&D process. The final shock is an aggregate shock to the stock of basic knowledge and arrives as a Poisson process with an arrival rate influenced by economy-wide spending on R&D. We show that this model is capable of generating an observed TFP series that is autocorrelated, even when the standard productivity shock is pure white noise.