Uncertainty, Capital Investment, and Risk Management
利用前瞻性和外生的产出价格不确定性指标，研究价格不确定性如何影响企业资本投资、风险管理和债务发行，发现大企业和小企业应对方式不同，且对冲能缓解不确定性对投资的负面影响。
We use forward-looking and exogenous measures of output price uncertainty to examine the effect of price uncertainty on firm-level capital investment, risk management, and debt issuance. The effects of uncertainty vary significantly by firm size. When faced with high price uncertainty, large firms increase their hedging intensity but do not lower capital investment or debt issuance. In contrast, small firms do not adjust their hedging intensity but significantly lower capital expenditure and debt issuance even after controlling for investment demand. Moreover, the negative effect of uncertainty on capital investment is significantly weaker for firms that hedge their output price risk. Our analysis highlights that, in the presence of financial frictions, high price uncertainty has significant dampening effects on capital investment of small firms by exacerbating their financial constraints, and that this negative effect is amplified by firm-level constraints on ability to hedge risk exposures. The Internet appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2815 . This paper was accepted by Amit Seru, finance.