Report
Interest rates and the market for new light vehicles
Maccini, Louis J.; Hall, George J.; Copeland, Adam (2015-09-01)
We study the impact of interest rates changes on both the demand for and supply of new light vehicles in an environment where consumers and manufacturers face their own interest rates. An increase in the consumers? interest rate raises their cost of financing and thus lowers the demand for new vehicles. An increase in the manufacturers? interest rate raises their cost of holding inventories. Both channels have equilibrium effects that are amplified and propagated over time through inventories, which serve as a way to both smooth production and facilitate greater sales at a given price. ...
Staff Reports , Paper 741

Discussion Paper
End of the Road? Impact of Interest Rate Changes on the Automobile Market
Maccini, Louis J.; Hall, George; Copeland, Adam (2015-11-23)
The Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at historic lows for the last six years, but eventually rates will return to their long-term averages. That means both policymakers and the public will once again be asking one of the classic questions in monetary economics: What are the impacts of rising interest rates on the real economy? Our recent New York Fed staff report ?Interest Rates and the Market for New Light Vehicles,? considers this question for the U.S. market for new cars and light trucks. We find strong evidence that rising rates will dampen activity: Our model predicts that in the ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20151123

Working Paper
Input and output inventories
Maccini, Louis J.; Humphreys, Brad R.; Schuh, Scott (1997)
This paper builds and estimates a new model of firm behavior that includes decisions to order, use, and stock input materials in a stage-of-fabrication environment with either gross production or value added technology. The model extends the traditional linear-quadratic model of output (finished goods) inventories by incorporating delivery and usage of input materials plus input inventory investment - features which largely have been ignored in the literature. Stylized facts indicate that input inventories are empirically more important than output inventories, especially in business cycle ...
Working Papers , Paper 97-7