TY  - JOUR
AU  - Pindyck,Robert S.
AU  - Rotemberg,Julio J.
TI  - Dynamic Factor Demands Under Rational Expectations
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 1015
PY  - 1982
Y2  - November 1982
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w1015
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w1015.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Robert S. Pindyck
MIT Sloan School of Management
100 Main Street, E62-522
Cambridge, MA  02142
Tel: 617/253-6641
Fax: 617/258-6855
E-Mail: RPINDYCK@MIT.EDU

Julio J. Rotemberg
Graduate School of Business
Harvard University, Morgan Hall
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA  02163
Tel: 617/495-1015
Fax: 617/496-5994
E-Mail: jrotemberg@hbs.edu
AB  - This paper presents a dynamic model of the industrial demands for structures, equipment, and blue- and white-collar labor. Our approach is consistent with producers holding rational expectations and optimizing dynamically in the presence of adjustment costs, yet it permits generality of functional form regarding the technology. We represent the technology by atranslog input requirement function that specifies the amount of blue-collar labor (a flexible factor) the firm must hire to produce a level of output given its quantities of three quasi-fixed factors that are subject to adjustment costs: non-production (white-collar) workers, equipment, and structures.A complete description of the production structure is obtained by simultaneously estimating the input requirement function and three stochastic Euler equations.We apply an instrumental variable technique to estimate these equations using aggregate data for U.S. manufacturing. We find that as a fraction of total expenditures, adjustment costs are small in total hut large on the margin,and that they differ considerably across quasi-fixed factors. We also present short- and long-run elasticities of factor demands.
ER  -