Cattle Cycles, Heterogeneous Expectations and the Age Distribution of Capital

This paper builds a dynamic forward-looking model describing the approximate ten-year cattle cycle. The theoretical model improves on existing models by (1) keeping track of the age distribution of the capital stock, (2) allowing for heterogeneous expectations, and (3) recognizing that cow-calf operators make investment decisions on both the cow and calf margins. The model is then calibrated and used to simulate artificial data that endogenously generates ten-year cycles in the total stock of cattle.