Volatility, Adjustment Cost and Capital Misallocation: Evidence from Chinese Industrial Firms

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of volatility in profitability shock and capital adjustment cost on aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) in Chinese industries firms. To quantify the effects of volatility and adjustment costs on aggregate TFP, we recover key structural parameters in a dynamic optimization problem, so the model is able to replicate salient features observed from the firm-level data. Our result shows that volatility leads to considerable loss in aggregate TFP, while the role of adjustment cost is limited but significant.