经济政策不确定性与企业投资行为研究

Economic Policy Uncertainty and Firms' Investment

本文采用Baker等(2013)开发的"中国经济政策不确定性指数"来衡量和研究中国经济政策不确定性对企业投资以及投资效率的影响。我们发现经济政策不确定性升高导致企业投资显著下降;当采用投资-投资机会敏感性和投资残差计量投资效率时,发现当经济政策不确定性高时,企业投资决策更加考虑经济因素,投资效率随着经济政策不确定性的上升而提高,并且对于那些受政策因素影响大的企业群体这一效应更为明显。本文深化了政策不确定性对企业投资行为的研究。在政策启示上,政府应当界定好政府"有形之手"的边界,以使其回归本职职能,发挥为市场经济保驾护航的作用。

This paper investigates how economic policy uncertainty affects firms＇ investment and asso- ciated investment efficiency using the policy uncertainty index constructed by Baker, Bloom, Davis and Wang （2013）. Our results show that firms＇ investment significantly decreases when policy uncertainty in- creases. Meanwhile, after measuring investment efficiency by investment-investment opportunity and invest- ment residual, we find that investment efficiency significantly increases. Further investigation indicates that these effects are more obvious for firms largely affected by policy factors. Our results contribute to the liter- ature of policy uncertainty. In practice, we suggest that government should improve policy transparence to reduce economic policy uncertainty, define the boundary of its ＂visible hands＂, and step back to its own positions with the role of escorting and securing the market economy.