Inventories and the Business Cycle: Testing a Sequential Trading Model

The uncertain and sequential trading (UST) model of inventories behavior with iid shocks predicts that (a) the beginning of period inventories is a sufficient statistic for past variables and (b) an increase in the beginning of period inventories reduces output, employment, hours per employee, and effort. I find empirical support for the second hypothesis but not for the first. The rejection of the first hypothesis is rather informative and points in the direction of adjustment costs and/or serially correlated shocks. (Copyright: Elsevier)