IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boe/boeewp/1087.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Firms’ sales expectations and marginal propensity to invest

Author

Listed:
  • Alati, Andrea

    (Bank of England)

  • Fischer, Johannes J

    (Deutsche Bundesbank)

  • Froemel, Maren

    (Bank of England)

  • Ozturk, Ozgen

    (University of Oxford)

Abstract

How do firms adjust their investment in response to sales shocks and what determines the response? Using a unique firm‑level survey, we propose a novel approach to estimate UK firms’ marginal propensity to invest (MPI) out of additional income: the forecast error of their sales growth expectations. Investment responds significantly to these sales surprises, with a 1 percentage point unexpected growth in sales translating into a 0.31 percentage point increase in capital expenditure. Firms that are more attentive to the state of the economy are more responsive, consistent with sales growth surprises providing firms with information about their demand. Sales growth surprises also cause firms to increase their prices, supporting this interpretation. We do not find evidence that these results are driven by financial frictions, uncertainty, or productivity shocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Alati, Andrea & Fischer, Johannes J & Froemel, Maren & Ozturk, Ozgen, 2024. "Firms’ sales expectations and marginal propensity to invest," Bank of England working papers 1087, Bank of England.
    • Handle: RePEc:boe:boeewp:1087
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/working-paper/2024/firms-sales-expectations-and-marginal-propensity-to-invest.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aubhik Khan & Julia K. Thomas, 2013. "Credit Shocks and Aggregate Fluctuations in an Economy with Production Heterogeneity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(6), pages 1055-1107.
    2. George W. Evans, 2001. "Expectations in Macroeconomics. Adaptive versus Eductive Learning," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 52(3), pages 573-582.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sylvain Catherine & Thomas Chaney & Zongbo Huang & David Sraer & David Thesmar, 2022. "Quantifying Reduced‐Form Evidence on Collateral Constraints," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(4), pages 2143-2181, August.
    2. Berardi, Michele, 2007. "Heterogeneity and misspecifications in learning," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(10), pages 3203-3227, October.
    3. Inkoo Cho & Noah Williams, 2024. "Collusive Outcomes Without Collusion," Papers 2403.07177, arXiv.org.
    4. Javier Bianchi & Enrique G. Mendoza, 2018. "Optimal Time-Consistent Macroprudential Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 588-634.
    5. Chen, Cheng & Senga, Tatsuro & Sun, Chang & Zhang, Hongyong, 2023. "Uncertainty, imperfect information, and expectation formation over the firm’s life cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 60-77.
    6. Tasneem, Faria & Waters, George, 2017. "Forecasting MISO Electricity Prices: A Threshold Autoregressive Approach with Load Data," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 48(3), October.
    7. Satyajit Chatterjee & Burcu Eyigungor, 2023. "The Firm Size-Leverage Relationship and Its Implications for Entry and Business Concentration," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 48, pages 132-157, April.
    8. George W. Evans & Seppo Honkapohja, 2009. "Robust Learning Stability with Operational Monetary Policy Rules," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Carl E. Walsh & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series (ed.),Monetary Policy under Uncertainty and Learning, edition 1, volume 13, chapter 5, pages 145-170, Central Bank of Chile.
    9. Albonico, Alice & Tirelli, Patrizio, 2020. "Financial crises and sudden stops: Was the European monetary union crisis different?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 13-26.
    10. Warne, Anders, 2023. "DSGE model forecasting: rational expectations vs. adaptive learning," Working Paper Series 2768, European Central Bank.
    11. Gerth Florian & Otsu Keisuke, 2018. "The post-crisis slump in Europe: a business cycle accounting analysis," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-25, January.
    12. Mathieu Pedemonte & Hiroshi Toma & Esteban Verdugo, 2023. "Aggregate Implications of Heterogeneous Inflation Expectations: The Role of Individual Experience," Working Papers 23-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    13. Marco Airaudo & Salvatore Nisticò & Luis‐Felipe Zanna, 2015. "Learning, Monetary Policy, and Asset Prices," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(7), pages 1273-1307, October.
    14. Elizabeth Bersson & Patrick Hürtgen & Matthias Paustian, 2024. "Expectations Formation, Sticky Prices, and the ZLB," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 56(2-3), pages 365-393, March.
    15. Evans, George W. & Hommes, Cars & McGough, Bruce & Salle, Isabelle, 2022. "Are long-horizon expectations (de-)stabilizing? Theory and experiments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 44-63.
    16. Straub, Ludwig & Ulbricht, Robert, 2015. "Endogenous Uncertainty and Credit Crunches," TSE Working Papers 15-604, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Dec 2017.
    17. Cristina Arellano & Yan Bai & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2019. "Financial Frictions and Fluctuations in Volatility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(5), pages 2049-2103.
    18. Adriana Cornea‐Madeira & João Madeira, 2022. "Econometric Analysis of Switching Expectations in UK Inflation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(3), pages 651-673, June.
    19. Acharya, Viral & Crosignani, Matteo & Eisert, Tim & Eufinger, Christian, 2023. "How do supply shocks to inflation generalize? Evidence from the pandemic era in Europe," CEPR Discussion Papers 18530, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Stephen J. Terry, 2017. "Alternative Methods for Solving Heterogeneous Firm Models," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(6), pages 1081-1111, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Investment; survey data; corporate finance; financial frictions; learning;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D25 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Intertemporal Firm Choice: Investment, Capacity, and Financing
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:boe:boeewp:1087. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Digital Media Team (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/boegvuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.