A common result from altering several fundamental assumptions of the neoclassical investment model with convex adjustment costs is that investment may occur in lumpy episodes. This paper takes a step back and asks "How lumpy is the investment?" We answer this question by documenting the...

Using confidential Census data on U.S. manufacturing plants, we document that most of the dispersion in investment rates across plants occurs within rms instead of across firms. Between- firm dispersion is almost acyclical, but within- rm dispersion is strongly procyclical. To investigate the...

This paper explores the relationship between capital composition and productivity using a unique and remarkably detailed data set on firm-level, asset-specific investment in the U.S. Using cross-sectional and longitudinal regressions, I find that among all types of capital, only computers,...

Recent research has indicated that investment in certain capital types, such as computers, has fostered accelerated productivity growth and enabled a fundamental reorganization of the workplace. However, remarkably little is known about the composition of investment at the micro level. This...

We incorporate the lumpy nature of firm-level investment into the study of how tax policy affects investment behavior. We show that tax policies can directly impact the lumpiness of investment. Extensive-margin responses to tax policy are key to understanding the effects of different tax reforms...

A universal fact of firm-level data is that investment is lumpy: firms either replace a considerable fraction of their existing capital (spike) or do not invest at all (inaction). This paper incorporates the lumpy nature of investment into the study of how tax policy affects investment behavior....

This paper develops and estimates an industry equilibrium model of manufacturing plants in the Korean electric motor industry from 1991 to 1996. Plant-level decisions on R&D, physical capital investment, entry, and exit are integrated in a dynamic setting with knowledge spillovers. We use a...