Investment behavior of U.S. firms over heterogeneous capital goods: a snapshot

The 1998 Annual Capital Expenditure Survey (ACES) provides information on disaggregate investment across a wide range of detailed asset types for a representative sample of roughly 30,000 firms. These rich data on disaggregate investment provides us with a point-in-time snapshot of investment composition choices at the firm level. This short paper uses this data to establish a number of stylized facts about disaggregate investment behavior, with a special focus on information technology.