Empirical Study on Uncertainty and Firm Behavior Using Micro Data

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26590043
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Economic policy
• Research Institution: Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry
• Principal Investigator: Morikawa Masayuki 独立行政法人経済産業研究所, 副所長, 副所長 (70272284)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 不確実性 / 企業行動 / 生産 / 設備投資 / 輸出

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The purpose of this research is, using micro data from government statistics and original surveys, to analyze uncertainty firms facing and its impacts on management and on the macro economy. Major results are as follows: (1) Business uncertainty negatively affects firms’ investments. (2) Exchange rate uncertainty has a negative effect on exports. (3) Firms perceive uncertainty over the social security system, tax policy, fiscal expenditure, and international trade policy. (4) Policy uncertainties have substantial effects on managerial decisions, especially on equipment investment and hiring of regular employees. (5) Uncertainty over production forecast is associated with overseas policy uncertainty, in addition to Japan’s own economic policy uncertainty. (6) The uncertainty measures constructed from micro data have an advantage over those calculated from the publicly available aggregated data.

Free Research Field

経済政策、産業構造、生産性