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Firms' investment decisions in response to demand and price uncertainty

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  • Fuss, Catherine
  • Vermeulen, Philip

Abstract

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. JEL Classification: D21, D24, D81, D92, C23

Suggested Citation

  • Fuss, Catherine & Vermeulen, Philip, 2004. "Firms' investment decisions in response to demand and price uncertainty," Working Paper Series 347, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:2004347
    Note: 327651
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    investment; Panel data; real options; survey data; uncertainty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • D92 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice, Investment, Capacity, and Financing
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

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