Chen Cheng, Senga Tatsuro, Zhang Hongyong
Clemson University, Clemson, USA.
Keio University, Tokyo, Japan.
Jpn Econ Rev (Oxf). 2021;72(3):509-532. doi: 10.1007/s42973-021-00078-8. Epub 2021 Jul 7.
Utilizing a unique firm-level survey in Japan that contains five-bin forecasts for sales, we document three findings. First, firm-level subjective uncertainty is highly and positively related to volatility of past firm growth. Second, there are substantial variations in subjective uncertainty across firms, with a long right tail with extremely high subjective uncertainty. In addition, firms that have exposure to international businesses either through international trade or foreign direct investment have both higher average expected sales and subjective uncertainty. Finally, the sudden escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic in January-February 2020 led to a substantial increase in firms' subjective uncertainty. Our triple-difference estimation results show that this effect is especially large for firms that have direct exposure to China through international trade and foreign direct investment.
利用日本一项独特的企业层面调查，该调查包含了销售的五档预测，我们记录了三个发现。第一，企业层面的主观不确定性与过去企业增长的波动性高度正相关。第二，各企业之间的主观不确定性存在很大差异，右侧有一个很长的尾巴，代表主观不确定性极高。此外，通过国际贸易或外国直接投资涉足国际业务的企业，平均预期销售额和主观不确定性都更高。最后，2020年1月至2月新冠疫情的突然升级导致企业的主观不确定性大幅增加。我们的三重差分估计结果表明，对于通过国际贸易和外国直接投资直接接触中国的企业，这种影响尤其大。
