Uncertainty and investment dynamics

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bloom, Nick; Bond, Stephen; Van Reenen, John
• 署名单位: Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Oxford; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-937X.2007.00426.x
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 391-415
• 关键词: panel-data; irreversibility; error; adjustment

摘要

This paper shows that with (partial) irreversibility higher uncertainty reduces the responsiveness of investment to demand shocks. Uncertainty increases real option values making firms more cautious when investing or disinvesting. This is confirmed both numerically for a model with a rich mix of adjustment costs, time-varying uncertainty, and aggregation over investment decisions and time and also empirically for a panel of manufacturing firms. These cautionary effects of uncertainty are large-going from the lower quartile to the upper quartile of the uncertainty distribution typically halves the first year investment response to demand shocks. This implies the responsiveness of firms to any given policy stimulus may be much weaker in periods of high uncertainty, such as after the 1973 oil crisis and September 11, 2001.