经济政策不确定性与企业劳动投资决策
Economic policy uncertainty and firms’ labor investment decision
经济政策不确定性与企业劳动投资决策
Author
Jian Chu
School of Business, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China,and
Junxiong Fang
School of Management, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Citation
Chu, J. and Fang, J. (2020), "Economic policy uncertainty and firms' labor investment decision", China Finance Review International, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 73-91. https://doi.org/10.1108/CFRI-02-2020-0013
关键词
Economic policy uncertainty, Labor investment, Labor investment efficiency,Human capital allocation
摘要
本文从劳动投资决策角度考察中国经济政策不确定性对微观企业的影响。研究发现，经济政策不确定性越高，企业劳动投资水平越低；同时经济政策不确定性越高，企业劳动投资效率越高，具体表现为劳动过度投资程度越低，并且这一现象主要体现在民营企业和所处地区政府干预程度较低的企业中。进一步研究发现，经济政策不确定性与企业劳动投资效率的正向关系在企业劳动密集型程度较高、行业竞争较为激烈、劳动力市场较为发达以及劳动法律保护程度较高时更为明显。同时，经济政策不确定性促使企业调整人力资本结构，增加对高人力资本员工的雇佣比例，进而改善人力资本配置效率。最终，经济政策不确定性也确实提升了企业全要素生产率。综上表明，面对经济政策不确定性的上升，企业主动减少了对劳动要素的需求，通过优化人力资本配置进而改善了劳动投资效率，最终提升了经营效率。
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of economic policy uncertainty on firms' labor investment decision, which includes labor investment level and efficiency, especially human capital allocation.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses Economic Policy Uncertainty Index for China and Chinese A-share listed firms in the period 2002–2016 to constructs a sample of 20,779 firm-year observations and applies the methods of pooled OLS regressions to do an empirical study.
Findings
This paper finds that firms' labor investment is negatively correlated with economic policy uncertainty. And firms' labor investment efficiency (and overinvestment in labor) is positively (negatively) correlated with economic policy uncertainty, which is more significant for non-SOEs and firms with less government intervention. Further, the positive relation between economic policy uncertainty and labor investment efficiency is more significant for labor-intensive firms, firms in competitive industry, firms in developed labor market and firms under strong labor law protection. In addition, economic policy uncertainty induces firms to make adjustment on human capital structure and allocate more employees with high human capital, which eventually helps firms achieve higher total factor productivity.
Social implications
The study of this paper indicates that the government needs to consider economic policies' impact on firms when introducing and changing policies and guide firms to improve human capital allocation under different internal and external conditions to finally realize the optimal allocation of social resources.
Originality/value
This paper studies the influence of external economic policy environment on firms' labor investment decision, which lacks adequate attention in the literature and indicates that under economic policy uncertainty, firms actively decrease labor demand and increase labor investment efficiency by optimizing human capital allocation.
文章结构
Introduction and literature review
Literature review, theoretical analysis and research hypotheses
Research design and sample source
3.1 Measurement of economic policy uncertainty
3.2 Measurement of labor investment and labor investment efficiency
3.3 Research model
3.4 Sample selection and descriptive statistics
Empirical results and analysis
4.1 Basic empirical results and analysis
4.2 Robustness tests
Further analysis
5.1 The influence of factors about human capital allocation
5.2 Economic policy uncertainty and the adjustment of firms’ human capital structure
5.3 Economic policy uncertainty and firms’ operating efficiency
Conclusions and implications
研究成果
Annual trend of China’s economic policy uncertainty.
Summary statistics.
Economic policy uncertainty and firms’ labor investment and labor investment efficiency.
Splitting labor investment efficiency into hiring and firing variables.
Subsample test based on firms’ ownership and government
intervention.
Robustness tests.
Subsample tests based on factors about human capital allocation.
Economic policy uncertainty and firms’ human capital structure.
Economic policy uncertainty and firms’ total factor productivity.
主要结论
The effect of macroeconomic policy uncertainty on enterprises is an important research topic in the field of economics and finance. With the rise of economic policy uncertainty, this research topic becomes more and more significant. This paper examines the impact of China's economic policy uncertainty on firms from the perspective of labor investment decision. It is found that the higher economic policy uncertainty is, the lower labor investment level is. Meanwhile, the higher economic policy uncertainty is, the higher labor investment efficiency is, especially the lower labor overinvestment is. The result is mainly significant when firms are private firms or are located in the areas with less government intervention. Further analyses show that the positive relationship between economic policy uncertainty and labor investment efficiency is more significant when firms' labor-intensive degree is higher or the industry competition is more intense or the labor market is more developed or the labor law protection is stronger. In addition, economic policy uncertainty induces firms to adjust the structure of human capital and increase the proportion of employees with high human capital to improve the efficiency of human capital allocation. Finally, economic policy uncertainty does improve firms' total factor productivity. In conclusion, in the face of the rising economic policy uncertainty, firms actively reduce the demand for labor factors and improve labor investment efficiency by optimizing human capital allocation, which ultimately improves their operating efficiency.
The study of this paper expands the researches on the relationship between macroeconomic policies and enterprises’ behaviors and provides more research evidence for the literature of firms' investment efficiency, especially labor investment efficiency. Meanwhile, this study also has important policy implications. On the one hand, the government should avoid introducing economic policies too frequently and the issued economic policies should also have a clear direction so that enterprises can operate in a stable policy environment. On the other hand, when introducing and changing economic policies, the government needs to consider their impact on enterprises, especially firms' human capital allocation and guide firms to improve human capital allocation under different internal and external conditions to finally realize the optimal allocation of resources of the whole economy.
作者简介
褚剑，南京大学商学院助理教授，管理学博士.。
方军雄，复旦大学管理学院教授，博士生导师，管理学博士。
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