Resuscitating Real Business Cycles

101 Pages Posted: 7 May 2000 Last revised: 4 Aug 2022

See all articles by Robert G. King

Robert G. King

Boston University - Department of Economics; Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond - Research Department; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Sergio T. Rebelo

Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: February 2000

Abstract

The Real Business Cycle (RBC) research program has grown spectacularly over the last decade, as its concepts and methods have diffused into mainstream macroeconomics. Yet, there is increasing skepticism that technology shocks are a major source of business fluctuations. This chapter exposits the basic RBC model and shows that it requires large technology shocks to produce realistic business cycles. While Solow residuals are sufficiently volatile, these imply frequent technological regress. Productivity studies permitting unobserved factor variation find much smaller technology shocks, suggesting the imminent demise of real business cycles. However, we show that greater factor variation also dramatically amplifies shocks: a RBC model with varying capital utilization yields realistic business cycles from small, nonnegative changes in technology.

Suggested Citation

King, Robert G. and Tavares Rebelo, Sergio, Resuscitating Real Business Cycles (February 2000). NBER Working Paper No. w7534, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=215852

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