Business Cycles, Asset Prices, and the Frictions of Capital and Labor

Abstract

We propose a simple real business cycle model to explain two of the most important aspects of macroeconomics: business cycle facts and the asset pricing mechanism. Based on US and Japanese quarterly data, we estimate the model with capital and labor adjustment costs. Our analysis reveals that this simple model can explain the key business cycle facts, even without other frictions such as sticky prices, sticky wages, and search and matching frictions. Furthermore, this simple model also has explanatory power for whether a stock price will increase or decrease. However, this feature of the model is weaker for the Great Recession in the US economy.