Firms' investment decisions in response to demand and price uncertainty

We estimate the effect of demand and price uncertainty on firms' investment decisions from a panel of manufacturing firms. Uncertainty measures are derived from firms' subjective qualitative expectations. They are close to their theoretical counterparts, the variances of future demand and price shocks. We find that demand uncertainty depresses planned and realized investment, while price uncertainty is insignificant. This is consistent with the behavior of monopolistic firms with irreversible capital (Caballero, 1991). Further, firms revise their investment plans very little. They may do so in... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Fuss, Catherine
Vermeulen, Philip
Dokumenttyp: doc-type:workingPaper
Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
Verlag/Hrsg.: Brussels: National Bank of Belgium
Schlagwörter: ddc:330 / D21 / D24 / D81 / D92 / C23 / investment / uncertainty / real options / survey data / panel data / Investitionsentscheidung / Gesamtwirtschaftliche Nachfrage / Preiswettbewerb / Risiko / Industrie / Belgien
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26935197
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : http://hdl.handle.net/10419/144259

We estimate the effect of demand and price uncertainty on firms' investment decisions from a panel of manufacturing firms. Uncertainty measures are derived from firms' subjective qualitative expectations. They are close to their theoretical counterparts, the variances of future demand and price shocks. We find that demand uncertainty depresses planned and realized investment, while price uncertainty is insignificant. This is consistent with the behavior of monopolistic firms with irreversible capital (Caballero, 1991). Further, firms revise their investment plans very little. They may do so in response to new information on sales growth, but not as a result of reduced uncertainty.