A NEOCLASSICAL MODEL OF SEASONAL FLUCTUATIONS

We develop a neoclassical capital accumulation model with seasonal perturbations to tastes and technology. We calibrate the model and use it to study the impact of seasonal demand and supply perturbations on economic activity. We find that the impact is largely limited to a single quarter. We also use our model to isolate the seasonal movements in U.S. quarterly data and then compute the seasonal variations in tastes and technology that approximately explain these movements. We find comovements in productivity and taste perturbations that are very similar to the seasonal comovements of aggregate variables.