The real business cycle model is often described as the core of modern business cycle research. What this means is that other business cycle models have the RBC model as a special case (i.e. strip away all of the frictions from your model and its an RBC model). The idea that the RBC model is the core of modern business cycle research is somewhat tautological since the RBC model is just a neoclassical model without any frictions. Thus, if we start with a model with frictions and take those frictions away, we have a frictionless model.
The purpose of the original RBC models was not necessarily to argue that these models represented an accurate portrayal of the business cycle, but rather to see how much of the business cycle could be explained without the appeal to frictions. The basic idea is that there could be shocks to tastes and/or technology and that these changes could cause fluctuations in economic activity. Furthermore, since the RBC model was a frictionless model, any such fluctuations would be efficient. This conclusion was important. We typically think of recessions as being inefficient and costly. If this is true, countercyclical policy could be welfare-increasing. However, if the world can be adequately explained by the RBC model, then economic fluctuations represent efficient responses to unexpected changes in tastes and technology. There is no role for countercyclical policy.
There were two critical responses to RBC models. The first criticism was that the model was too simple. The crux of this argument is that if one estimated changes in total factor productivity (TFP; technology in the RBC model) using something like the Solow residual and plugged this into the model, one might be misled into thinking the model had greater predictive power than it did in reality. The basic idea is that the Solow residual is, as the name implies, a residual. Thus, this measure of TFP only captured fluctuations in output that were not explained by changes in labor and capital. Since there are a lot of things besides technology that might effect output other than labor and capital, this might not be a good measure of TFP and might result in attributing a greater percentage of fluctuations to TFP than was true of the actual data generating process.
The second critical response was largely to ridicule and make fun of the model. For example, Franco Modigliani once quipped that RBC-type models were akin to assuming that business cycles were mass outbreaks of laziness. Others would criticize the theory by stating that recessions must be periods of time when society collectively forgets how to use technology. And recently, Paul Romer has suggested that technology shocks be relabeled as phlogiston shocks.
These latter criticisms are certainly witty and no doubt the source of laughter in seminar rooms. Unfortunately, these latter criticisms obscure the more important criticisms. More importantly, however, they represent a misunderstanding of what the RBC model is about. As a result, I would like to provide an interpretation of the RBC model and then discuss more substantive criticisms.
The idea behind the real business cycle model is that fluctuations in aggregate productivity are the cause of economic fluctuations. If all firms are identical, then any decline in aggregate productivity must be a decline in the productivity of all the individual firms. But why would firms become less productive? To me, this seems to be the wrong way to interpret the model. My preferred interpretation is as follows. Suppose that you have a bunch of different firms producing different goods and these firms have different levels of productivity. In this case, an aggregate productivity shock is simply the reallocation from high productivity firms to low productivity firms or vice versa. As long as we think of all markets as being competitive, then the RBC model is just a reduced form version of what I’ve just described. In other words, the RBC model essentially suggests that fluctuations in the economy are driven by the reallocation of inputs between firms with different levels of productivity, but since markets are efficient we don’t need to get into the weeds of this reallocation in the model and can simply focus our attention on a representative firm and aggregate productivity.
I think that my interpretation is important for a couple of reasons. First, it suggests that while “forgetting how to use technology” might get chuckles in the seminar room, it is not particularly useful for thinking about productivity shocks. Second, and more importantly, this interpretation allows for further analysis. For example, how often do we see such reallocation between high productivity firms and low productivity firms? How well do such reallocations line up with business cycles in the data? What are the sources of reallocation? For example, if the reallocation is due to changes in demographics and/or preferences, then these reallocations could be interpreted as efficient responses to structural changes in the economy and be seen as efficient. However, if these reallocations are caused by changes in relative prices due to, say, monetary policy, then the welfare and policy implications are much different.
Thus, to me, rather than denigrate RBC theory, what we should do is try to disaggregate productivity, determine what causes reallocation, and try to assess whether this is an efficient reallocation or should really be considered misallocation. The good news is that economists are already doing this (here and here, for example). Unfortunately, you hear more sneering and name-calling in popular discussions than you do about this interesting and important work.
Finally, I should note that I think one of the reasons that the real business cycle model has been such a point of controversy is that it implies that recessions are efficient responses to fluctuations in productivity and counter-cyclical policy is unnecessary. This notion violates the prior beliefs of a great number of economists. As a result, I think that many of these economists are therefore willing to dismiss RBC out of hand. Nonetheless, while I myself am not inclined to think that recessions are simply efficient responses to taste and technology changes, I do think that this starting point is useful as a thought exercise. Using an RBC model as a starting point to thinking about recessions forces one to think about the potential sources of inefficiencies, how to test the magnitude of such effects, and the appropriate policy response. The better we are able to disaggregate fluctuations in productivity, the more we should be able to learn about fluctuations in aggregate productivity and the more we might be able to learn about the driving forces of recessions.
The Everyday Economist 