Download or read book Measuring Firm Level Uncertainty written by Maria Tito and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ample empirical research documents the negative effect of uncertainty on economic activity. Unexpected changes in macroeconomic conditions or doubts about the direction of future policy tend to be associated with lower capital investments, reduced hiring, and slower consumer spending.

Download or read book Measuring Firm level Uncertainty written by Masayuki Morikawa and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Measuring the Effects of Firm Uncertainty on Economic Activity written by Kyle Handley and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We construct a new measure of firm-level uncertainty from analyzing the text of mandatory reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Using firm and establishment level panel data on investment margins and employment dynamics, we find our uncertainty measure has large effects on investment even after controlling for industry and time-varying shocks. Periods of high firm uncertainty (1) reduce investment rates by 0.5% and attenuate the response to positive sales shocks by about half and (2) reduce employment growth rates by 1.4% and the response to positive sales shocks by 30%. Firms are less responsive to demand shocks at the firm level and across establishments within the firm. Consistent with "wait and see” dynamics, uncertainty affects new investment activity, e.g. plant births and acquisition, more than disinvestment margins.

Download or read book A Firm level Perspective on Micro and Macro level Uncertainty written by and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Measuring Micro and Macro Uncertainty written by Yang Liu and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation aims at building alternative measures of economic uncertainty from micro data. The resulting panel measurements enable investigations of real uncertainty effects at the individual, firm, industry, and macro level. Two uncertainty models are introduced to demonstrate additional channels through which uncertainty poses impacts on economic activities. In the first chapter, I propose a novel firm-level uncertainty measure based on the latent conditional volatility of forecast errors. By applying this measure to I/B/E/S database, I track 1,916 U.S. public companies' uncertainties for over 34 years. The firm-level measurements are then aggregated into a macro uncertainty index and the implications at the macro- and micro-level are compared. At the macro level, VAR results indicate a strong "granular origin'' of real uncertainty effects from large firms in addition to the classical short-lived "drop and rebound'' effect. At the firm level, panel regression results confirm the negative impact of macro uncertainty on firm investment and reveal a composite effect of idiosyncratic uncertainty that depends on investment horizon, firm profitability and magnitude of shock (Empirical results are also shown in Chapter 2). The second chapter introduces two uncertainty models that show channels other than "real option'' and "risk aversion & risk premia'' in contemporary literature. The first model is based on Lucas Island Model and Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). It tries to understand the uncertainty effects from the perspective of inefficient expectation and the resulting underproduction problem. The second model inherits New-Keynesian assumptions and features a competition mechanism. It emphasizes the real loss from unexpected supply and demand shocks. Both models include idiosyncratic and macro uncertainty as separate factors and predict a generally negative impact of macro uncertainty versus a composite effect of idiosyncratic uncertainty. In the third chapter, I propose a new measure of macroeconomic uncertainty that incorporates rich information set from U.S. SPF density forecasts. The measure has two key advantages over traditional measures: (i) it reflects the subjective perceptions of market participants; (ii) it is an ex-ante measure that does not require the knowledge of realized outcomes. I study the features of this measure of macroeconomic uncertainty and explore its impact on real economic activities within the U.S. as well as its spillover effects on BRIC countries. The Appendix discusses the methodology used in Chapter 3.

Download or read book Uncertainty and Unemployment written by Sangyup Choi and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-02-23 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We study the role of uncertainty shocks in explaining unemployment dynamics, separating out the role of aggregate and sectoral channels. Using S&P500 data from the first quarter of 1957 to third quarter of 2014, we construct separate indices to measure aggregate and sectoral uncertainty and compare their effects on the unemployment rate in a standard macroeconomic vector autoregressive (VAR) model. We find that aggregate uncertainty leads to an immediate increase in unemployment, with the impact dissipating within a year. In contrast, sectoral uncertainty has a long-lived impact on unemployment, with the peak impact occurring after two years. The results are consistent with a view that the impact of aggregate uncertainty occurs through a “wait-and-see” mechanism while increased sectoral uncertainty raises unemployment by requiring greater reallocation across sectors.

Download or read book Investment under Uncertainty written by Robert K. Dixit and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-14 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How should firms decide whether and when to invest in new capital equipment, additions to their workforce, or the development of new products? Why have traditional economic models of investment failed to explain the behavior of investment spending in the United States and other countries? In this book, Avinash Dixit and Robert Pindyck provide the first detailed exposition of a new theoretical approach to the capital investment decisions of firms, stressing the irreversibility of most investment decisions, and the ongoing uncertainty of the economic environment in which these decisions are made. In so doing, they answer important questions about investment decisions and the behavior of investment spending. This new approach to investment recognizes the option value of waiting for better (but never complete) information. It exploits an analogy with the theory of options in financial markets, which permits a much richer dynamic framework than was possible with the traditional theory of investment. The authors present the new theory in a clear and systematic way, and consolidate, synthesize, and extend the various strands of research that have come out of the theory. Their book shows the importance of the theory for understanding investment behavior of firms; develops the implications of this theory for industry dynamics and for government policy concerning investment; and shows how the theory can be applied to specific industries and to a wide variety of business problems.

Download or read book Uncertainty of Uncertainty and Firm Cash Holdings written by John W. Goodell and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We examine the impact on firm cash holdings of uncertainty of uncertainty, measured as the ex post volatility of economic policy uncertainty. Using the news-based index developed by Baker, Bloom, and Davis (2016) for twenty-two countries, we find that, when there is greater volatility of economic uncertainty, firms hold more cash. Our results are robust to controlling for a host of firm-level and country-level factors. Consistent with Baker, Bloom, and Davis (2016), we consider that less economic policy uncertainty is associated with more investment; and so the real-option value of cash is sensitive to the possibility of a future desirability of investment. Therefore, when there is greater expected volatility of uncertainty, measured under rational expectations as the recent ex post volatility of uncertainty, firms will hold more cash. We also find that the volatility of economic policy uncertainty is much more economically significant in determining firm cash holdings than economic policy uncertainty itself. Therefore, our paper not only adds to the literature on uncertainty and cash holdings, but also, importantly, to the limited literature in finance on the impact of uncertainty of uncertainty.

Download or read book High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms written by John M. Abowd and published by Université de Montréal, Centre de recherche et développement en économique. This book was released on 1994 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We study a longitudinal sample of over one million French workers and over 500,000 employing firms. Real total annual compensation per worker is decomposed into components related to observable characteristics, worker heterogeneity, firm heterogeneity and residual variation. Except for the residual, all components may be correlated in an arbitrary fashion. At the level of the individual, we find that person-effects, especially those not related to observables like education, are the most important source of wage variation in France. Firm-effects, while important, are not as important as person-effects. At the level of firms, we find that enterprises that hire high-wage workers are more productive but not more profitable. They are also more capital and high-skilled employee intensive. Enterprises that pay higher wages, controlling for person-effects, are more productive and more profitable. They are also more capital intensive but are not more high-skilled labor intensive. We also find that person-effects explain 92% of inter-industry wage differentials.

Download or read book Business Tendency Surveys A Handbook written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2003-03-20 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook is a practical manual on the design and implementation of business tendency surveys, which ask company managers about the current situation of their business and about their plans and expectations for the future.

Download or read book Aggregate Uncertainty and the Supply of Credit written by Mr.Fabian Valencia and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2013-12-02 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent studies show that uncertainty shocks have quantitatively important effects on the real economy. This paper examines one particular channel at work: the supply of credit. It presents a model in which a bank, even if managed by risk-neutral shareholders and subject to limited liability, can exhibit self-insurance, and thus loan supply contracts when uncertainty increases. This prediction is tested with the universe of U.S. commercial banks over the period 1984-2010. Identification of credit supply is achieved by looking at the differential response of banks according to their level of capitalization. Consistent with the theoretical predictions, increases in uncertainty reduce the supply of credit, more so for banks with lower levels of capitalization. These results are weaker for large banks, and are robust to controlling for the lending and capital channels of monetary policy, to different measures of uncertainty, and to breaking the dataset in subsamples. Quantitatively, uncertainty shocks are almost as important as monetary policy ones with regards to the effects on the supply of credit.

Download or read book Uncertainty and Firm Investment written by Evren Cubukgil and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis explores effects of uncertainty on firm investment that are described in estimates of firm level investment specifications which include proxies for uncertainty over expected future firm profitability. A panel data set of UK firms covering the period 1987-2000 is used to estimate firm level investment specifications. Within year volatility in stock returns - a common proxy for firm specific uncertainty in previous literature - is compared with covariance measures between stock returns and market returns representing un-diversifiable risk from the CAPM; and with alternative uncertainty proxies based on volatility in I/B/E/S securities analysts' forecasts of earnings per share. Within estimates of firm level investment specifications, the thesis investigates the sensitivity of coefficients on uncertainty terms to the choice of underlying investment specification: error correction model between the natural logarithms of capital and sales; or the Hayashi (1982) Q model of investment. Coefficients on stock return volatility measures of uncertainty terms are found to vary significantly between estimates of error correction and average q specifications. Differences between coefficients estimated on uncertainty terms across estimates of these two investment specifications are supported with simulated data. Uncertainty measures based on volatility in I/B/E/S securities analysts' forecasts of earnings per share are found to be much more informative of investment behaviour than within year stock return volatility in estimates of both error correction and average q specifications. Coefficients on I/B/E/S uncertainty proxies imply more consistent investment-uncertainty relationships across estimates of error correction and average q specifications for the UK panel data set.

Download or read book Firm Inflation Uncertainty written by Ivan Yotzov and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We introduce a new measure of own-price inflation uncertainty using firm-level data from a large and representative survey of UK businesses. Inflation uncertainty increased significantly from the start of 2021 and reached a peak in the second half of 2022, even as a similar measure of sales uncertainty declined. We also find large cross-sectional differences in inflation uncertainty, with uncertainty particularly elevated for smaller firms and those in the goods sector. Finally, we show that firms which are more uncertain about their own price expectations experience higher forecast errors 12 months later. These findings suggest that studying inflation uncertainty at the firm level may be an important new dimension to understanding firm performance.

Download or read book Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty written by Scott R. Baker and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We develop a new index of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) based on newspaper coverage frequency. Several types of evidence -- including human readings of 12,000 newspaper articles -- indicate that our index proxies for movements in policy-related economic uncertainty. Our US index spikes near tight presidential elections, Gulf Wars I and II, the 9/11 attacks, the failure of Lehman Brothers, the 2011 debt-ceiling dispute and other major battles over fiscal policy. Using firm-level data, we find that policy uncertainty raises stock price volatility and reduces investment and employment in policy-sensitive sectors like defense, healthcare, and infrastructure construction. At the macro level, policy uncertainty innovations foreshadow declines in investment, output, and employment in the United States and, in a panel VAR setting, for 12 major economies. Extending our US index back to 1900, EPU rose dramatically in the 1930s (from late 1931) and has drifted upwards since the 1960s.

Download or read book The Risks of Financial Institutions written by Mark Carey and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 669 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until about twenty years ago, the consensus view on the cause of financial-system distress was fairly simple: a run on one bank could easily turn to a panic involving runs on all banks, destroying some and disrupting the financial system. Since then, however, a series of events—such as emerging-market debt crises, bond-market meltdowns, and the Long-Term Capital Management episode—has forced a rethinking of the risks facing financial institutions and the tools available to measure and manage these risks. The Risks of Financial Institutions examines the various risks affecting financial institutions and explores a variety of methods to help institutions and regulators more accurately measure and forecast risk. The contributors--from academic institutions, regulatory organizations, and banking--bring a wide range of perspectives and experience to the issue. The result is a volume that points a way forward to greater financial stability and better risk management of financial institutions.

Download or read book Global Uncertainty and Firm Investment written by Hyunduk Suh and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using firm-level data from 36 countries, we estimate the effect of global uncertainty on corporate investment and financial decisions. Eleven global uncertainty measures that encompass macro, micro, and higher-order dimensions of uncertainty are employed. We find that while Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) measures negatively affect investment, non-EPU measures have positive effects. In 2010s, EPU and non-EPU measures exhibit notably different behaviors which appear to considerably influence our results. We also explore how firm- and country-specific characteristics affect the relationship between uncertainty and investment. The negative effects of EPU measures on investment are stronger for firms with high investment irreversibility and high leverage, but no such effect is observed from non-EPU measures. In countries with deeper credit markets, investment decisions are less sensitive to uncertainty. Regarding financial decisions, (1) increased EPU measures lead to increased cash holdings, while an increase in most other uncertainty measures reduces them and (2) except for Global EPU, most uncertainty measures are negatively associated with dividend payouts. Overall, our results reveal that contrary to a substantial body of recent scholarly work, the uncertainty-investment relation is sensitive to uncertainty measures and sample periods and different uncertainty measures have differential effects on cash holdings and dividend payouts.

Download or read book New Perspectives on Policy Uncertainty written by Sandile Hlatshwayo and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, the ubiquitous and intensifying nature of economic policy uncertainty has made it a popular explanation for weak economic performance in developed and developing markets alike. The primary channel for this effect is decreased and delayed investment as firms adopt a ``wait and see'' approach to irreversible investments (Bernanke, 1983; Dixit and Pindyck, 1994). Deep empirical examination of policy uncertainty's impact is rare because of the difficulty associated in measuring its magnitude and changes over time. In this dissertation, I leverage the recent advent of global news aggregators to directly identify and measure policy uncertainty shocks based on ``news chatter'' in the press. Unlike previously used measures of economic uncertainty (e.g., strike days or exchange rate volatility), ``news chatter'' uncertainty indices pick up economic volatility as well as the threat or anticipation of volatility stemming from policy uncertainty, whether or not it comes to fruition. The more holistic character of such measures allows for a more nuanced examination of uncertainty's impact on firm decisions and outcomes. After constructing novel measures of policy uncertainty, I then explore how they translate into economic outcomes that extend beyond the traditional investment channel. In Chapter 1, I offer new insights into the channels policy uncertainty operates through by constructing a novel and rich dataset of type-specific policy uncertainty indices and leveraging previously unexamined variation in firm-level exposure to external markets to create firm-specific measures of policy uncertainty. Specifically, I exploit variation in firms' exposure to external markets to construct a firm-level measure of policy uncertainty. The approach both highlights a new channel for policy uncertainty and allows for stronger causal identification of the effects of policy uncertainty on economic performance. As part of this effort, I refine prior approaches to measuring policy uncertainty and distinguish between generic, fiscal, monetary, and trade policy uncertainty. I find that firms with greater exposure to external markets tend to experience larger declines in investment, sales, profits, and employment when fiscal and monetary policy uncertainty increase. Unexpectedly, increases in trade policy uncertainty appear to have a positive impact on exports for exposed firms. Both sets of findings can be rationalized in a standard model of firm investment under uncertainty. In particular, I present evidence that exposed firms may perceive increased uncertainty around trade agreement negotiations as a signal that negative outcomes are less likely in the near-term, incentivizing immediate investments. Historically, exchange rate depreciation makes a country's exports more competitive and cheaper, increasing its exports. Since the end of the Great Recession, many countries have seen this relationship weaken. In Chapter 2, I advance policy uncertainty as a new explanation for such dilutions in the relationship between exchange rates and export performance. Using South Africa as a case study, I find that increased policy uncertainty diminishes the responsiveness of exports to exchange rate fluctuations. In Chapter 3, I examine a more extreme version of policy uncertainty--regime uncertainty. In 2010, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an indictment against six of Kenya's foremost leaders for crimes against humanity related to 2008 post-election violence. I find strong evidence that firms connected to the accused experienced declines in valuations during ICC shocks, with particularly negative revaluations for firms with highly public links to the accused. The results suggest that the negative effects of regime uncertainty outweighed any positive ``rule of law'' shock that the ICC's intervention might have provided to firms. Together the studies provide new insights on the connections between policy uncertainty and weak aggregate economic performance. In addition to offering more nuance for policy directives, the results will help discipline future theoretical efforts to more accurately model complex dynamics in modern open economies.