Volatility, Growth and Aggregation

Abstract

I revisit the relationship between growth and volatility in two different disaggregated data sets. I confirm that growth and volatility are negatively related across countries, but show that across sectors, the relation is the opposite. This phenomenon, sometimes called "Simpson's fallacy", has a natural interpretation in the present context: It is the component of aggregate volatility that is common across sectors which correlates negatively with aggregate growth. Furthermore, while investment and volatility are unrelated in the aggregate, sectoral investment is shown to be more intense in volatile activities, as if the return to capital were higher there and resources were reallocated from safe low-yield activities to risky high-yield ones. These results call for a distinction between macroeconomic and sectoral volatilities, not unlike that between macroeconomics, where volatility is often understood as policy-driven aggregate instability, and microeconomics, where volatility reflects risk or innovation.

Keywords: Sectors, Growth, Volatility

JEL Classification: E32, O40