IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbb/reswpp/200205-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Investment, uncertainty and irreversibility: evidence from belgian accounting data

Author

Listed:
  • Danny Cassimon

    (University of Antwerp, Faculty of Applied Economics)

  • Peter-Jan Engelen

    (University of Antwerp, Faculty of Applied Economics)

  • Hilde Meersman

    (University of Antwerp, Faculty of Applied Economics)

  • Martine Van Wouwe

    (University of Antwerp, Faculty of Applied Economics)

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of uncertainty on the investment behaviour using firm-level data for a sample of Belgian manufacturing firms. In general, the results confirm former analysis at the aggregate level, stating that uncertainty does matter but that the sign of the effect and its magnitude largely depend on which proxies are used and how they are defined. It is shown that uncertainty has mainly an impact on the decision to invest and to a much lesser extent on the amount invested. Furthermore, the difference between reversible and irreversible investment is crucial. The impact of volatility on irreversible investment is far more larger than on reversible investment. In some cases, the amount of reversible investment will increase with higher volatility.

Suggested Citation

  • Danny Cassimon & Peter-Jan Engelen & Hilde Meersman & Martine Van Wouwe, 2002. "Investment, uncertainty and irreversibility: evidence from belgian accounting data," Working Paper Research 23, National Bank of Belgium.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbb:reswpp:200205-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nbb.be/doc/ts/publications/wp/wp23en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chirinko, Robert S, 1993. "Business Fixed Investment Spending: Modeling Strategies, Empirical Results, and Policy Implications," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1875-1911, December.
    2. repec:ant:wpaper:1995320 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Robert S. Chirinko, 1992. "Business Fixed Investment Spending: A Critical survey of Modeling Strategies, Empirical Results, and Policy Implications," Working Papers 9213, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    4. Robert S. Pindyck & Andrés Solimano, 1993. "Economic Instability and Aggregate Investment," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1993, Volume 8, pages 259-318, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    6. MEERSMAN, Hilde & CASSIMON, Danny, 1995. "Investment in the EC-countries: Does reducing uncertainty matter?," SESO Working Papers 1995007, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    7. Caballero, Ricardo J & Pindyck, Robert S, 1996. "Uncertainty, Investment, and Industry Evolution," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 37(3), pages 641-662, August.
    8. Vivek Ghosal & Prakash Loungani, 2000. "The Differential Impact of Uncertainty on Investment in Small and Large Businesses," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 338-343, May.
    9. repec:ant:wpaper:1995007 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Paul Butzen & Catherine Fuss & Philip Vermeulen, 2002. "The impact of uncertainty on investment plans," Working Paper Research 24, National Bank of Belgium.
    11. Guiseppe Bertola & Ricardo J. Caballero, 1994. "Irreversibility and Aggregate Investment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(2), pages 223-246.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patrick Bisciari & Alain Durré & Alain Nyssens, 2003. "Stock market valuation in the United States," Working Paper Document 41, National Bank of Belgium.
    2. Meersman, Hilde M.A., 2005. "Port Investments in an Uncertain Environment," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 279-298, January.
    3. Danny Cassimon & Peter-Jan Engelen & Luc Liedekerke, 2016. "When do Firms Invest in Corporate Social Responsibility? A Real Option Framework," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 15-29, August.
    4. Geert Langenus, 2006. "Fiscal sustainability indicators and policy design in the face of ageing," Working Paper Research 102, National Bank of Belgium.
    5. Ronald W. Anderson, 2002. "Capital structure, firm liquidity and growth," Working Paper Research 27, National Bank of Belgium.
    6. Ye Li & Clemens Kool & Peter-Jan Engelen, 2020. "Analyzing the Business Case for Hydrogen-Fuel Infrastructure Investments with Endogenous Demand in The Netherlands: A Real Options Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-22, July.

    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. Chirinko, Robert S. & Schaller, Huntley, 2009. "The irreversibility premium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 390-408, April.
    2. Ahsan Abbas & Eatzaz Ahmed & Fazal Husain, 2019. "Political and Economic Uncertainty and Investment Behaviour in Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 58(3), pages 307-331.
    3. Ghosal, Vivek & Loungani, Prakash, 1996. "Product Market Competition and the Impact of Price Uncertainty on Investment: Some Evidence from US Manufacturing Industries," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 217-228, June.
    4. Klaus Gugler & Mario Liebensteiner & Adhurim Haxhimusa & Nora Schindler, 2016. "Investment under Uncertainty in Electricity Generation," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp234, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    5. Bo, Hong & Sterken, Elmer, 2002. "Volatility of the interest rate, debt and firm investment: Dutch evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 179-193, March.
    6. Panagiotidis, Theodore & Printzis, Panagiotis, 2020. "What is the investment loss due to uncertainty?," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    7. John A. List & Michael S. Haigh, 2010. "Investment Under Uncertainty: Testing the Options Model with Professional Traders," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 974-984, November.
    8. Philip Arestis & Malcolm Sawyer, 2005. "Reinventing Fiscal Policy," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Blandine Laperche & Dimitri Uzunidis (ed.), John Kenneth Galbraith and the Future of Economics, chapter 9, pages 105-125, Palgrave Macmillan.
    9. Huntley Schaller, 2010. "Investment, Taxes and the Cost of Capital: An Euler Equation Specification Test," American Journal of Economics and Business Administration, Science Publications, vol. 2(3), pages 210-220, September.
    10. Marcelin, Isaac & Stephen, Sheryl-Ann K. & Fanta, Fassil & Tecklezion, Mussie, 2019. "Political regimes, investment and electoral uncertainty," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 580-599.
    11. Jonathan Hambur & Gianni La Cava, 2018. "Do Interest Rates Affect Business Investment? Evidence from Australian Company-level Data," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2018-05, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    12. Pratap, Sangeeta, 2003. "Do adjustment costs explain investment-cash flow insensitivity?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(11-12), pages 1993-2006, September.
    13. Vivek Ghosal & Prakash Loungani, 1996. "Firm size and the impact of profit-margin uncertainty on investment: do financing constraints play a role?," International Finance Discussion Papers 557, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Aubhik Khan & Julia K. Thomas, 2008. "Idiosyncratic Shocks and the Role of Nonconvexities in Plant and Aggregate Investment Dynamics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(2), pages 395-436, March.
    15. Jan Dehn, 2000. "Private Investment in Developing Countries: The Effects of Commodity Shocks and Uncertainty," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2000-11, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    16. Ulf von Kalckreuth, 2003. "Exploring the role of uncertainty for corporate investment decisions in Germany," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 139(II), pages 173-206, June.
    17. Julia K. Thomas, 2002. "Is Lumpy Investment Relevant for the Business Cycle?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 508-534, June.
    18. Shaanan, Joseph, 2005. "Investment, irreversibility, and options: An empirical framework," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3-4), pages 241-254.
    19. Sung Je Byun & Soojin Jo, 2018. "Heterogeneity in the dynamic effects of uncertainty on investment," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 127-155, February.
    20. Paul Butzen & Catherine Fuss & Philip Vermeulen, 2002. "The impact of uncertainty on investment plans," Working Paper Research 24, National Bank of Belgium.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    investment; uncertainty; irreversibility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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

    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:nbb:reswpp:200205-4. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bnbgvbe.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.