Does the Theory of Irreversible Investments Help Explain Movements in Office–Commercial Construction?
基于不可逆投资理论，构建扩展实证模型，利用1982-1998年美国主要市场数据，检验不确定性对写字楼商业建筑投资行为的影响，发现理论与数据一致，且衰退后投资更谨慎。
Focusing on the relevance of the modern investment theory in explaining movements in office–commercial construction, we attempt to advance existing empirical work in two respects. First, building on recent theoretical advances, we offer an extended empirical model of new construction that takes into account the full opportunity cost of irreversible investments in uncertain environments. Second, using updated time series of office–commercial construction across the nation's largest markets, we empirically estimate such a model to (i) explore investment behavior during 1982–1998 and (ii) detect differences, if any, in such behavior between the pre‐ and post‐recession years. Our empirical findings are fully consistent with the theory of irreversible investments. Such findings highlight both the relevance and the relative importance of uncertainty in underlying demand factors in shaping movements in office–commercial construction, while pointing altogether to more cautionary investment behavior during the post‐recession years.