The sensitivity of U.S. aggregate investment to shocks is procyclical: the response upon impact increases by approximately 50% from the trough to the peak of the business cycle. This feature of the data follows naturally from a DSGE model with lumpy microeconomic capital adjustment. Beyond...

The dynamic response of aggregate variables to shocks is one of the central concerns of applied macroeconomics. The main measurement procedure for these dynamics consists of estimating an ARMA or VAR (VARs, for short). In non- or semi-structural approaches, the characterization of dynamics stops...

The estimated persistence of macro aggregates involving lumpy microeconomic adjustment is biased downward when inferred from VAR estimates. The extent of this “missing persistence bias” decreases with the level of aggregation, yet convergence is very slow. Paradoxically, while idiosyncratic...