To analyze business fixed investment in Japan, which has been unusually volatile in recent years, we develop and apply a loglinear flexible accelerator model. We find that movements in business fixed investment are consistent with movements in output and the tax- adjusted cost of capital, both...

Casual examination of annual postwar data on inventories and aggregate output for seven developed countries -- Canada, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States -- suggests that in these countries the primary function of aggregate inventories is not to smooth aggregate...