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| Does Economic Policy Uncertainty Promote Intelligent Investment? Empirical Evidence from Provincial Industrial Robot Import Data in China |
| Huang Xiaowu,Jiao Ao |
| (School of Finance, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073, China) |
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Abstract Compared with general investment, intelligent investment often faces greater risks in a world with increasing uncertainties. According to the real option theory, if the uncertainty of revenue expectation increases, the enterprise will decrease its investment . However, according to growth option theory, under uncertain conditions, the cost of immediate investment is likely to be lower so that increasing investment might be profitable for enterprises. For intelligent investment with high technology and broad market prospects, the enterprise will consider more about investment cost and revenue expectations while making the decision to increase investment. When the economic uncertainty increases, it is more likely to make intelligent investment. Industrial robot is the core equipment of manufacturing, especially intelligent manufacturing. The application of the industrial robot reflects the national development and competitiveness of manufacturing industry.China has become the largest market of industrial robot in the world. The investment on industrial robot has obvious characteristics of intelligent investment. Therefore, this paper takes it as the agent variable of industrial intelligent investment to study the effect of economic policy uncertainty on industrial intelligent investment.#br#Using the monthly import data of industrial robot of various provinces and cities, this paper discusses the effect of economic policy uncertainty on intelligent investment. The data about industrial robot import is from China Commodity Trade Database of EPS (Express Professional Superior), which provides monthly data of industrial robot import by province from China Customs. The key explanatory variable is China's economic policy uncertainty. The monthly EPU Index of China is used to measure the uncertainty faced by enterprises. To avoid spurious regression, the study first performs robustness tests by IPS and PP-Fisher which are used for panel unit root test. Then it makes a fixed effect regression with the data. The results show that the import of industrial robots increases significantly when economic policy uncertainty increases. There are differences of the promoting effect in different innovation environments and areas with different industrial structures. In particular, in provinces with a higher proportion of fiscal expenditure in science and technology, more authorized patent applications, and a higher proportion of invention patents in all patents, the import of industrial robots will be more strongly promoted by the increase of economic policy uncertainty. The promotion effect is also stronger in provinces with higher proportion of output in automobile and computer industries and lower position of global value chain. The study further conducts the endogeneity and robustness tests . It replaces the explanatory variable with the density of industrial robot and exposure to robot by province. Then it performs regression of EPU with a lag of 3 and 6 stages. Considering the impact of the economic cycle on the operation and investment behavior of enterprises, the study divides the samples into three groups for regression according to the quarterly GDP growth rate. The results show that the conclusion still holds. In further research, this study analyzes how economic policy uncertainty promotes intelligent investment. It is found that the increase in economic policy uncertainty will increase the value of the growth option for enterprises, and the economic motivation of enterprises to make intelligent investments because of the lower conversion cost.#br#This study provides empirical evidence for the growth option effect of economic policy uncertainty and enriches the domestic research in this field. Besides, the result shows that no matter at what stage of the economic cycle, economic policy uncertainty has a promoting effect on intelligent investment, which indicates that intelligent investment has a certain smoothing effect on economic fluctuations across the business cycle. Meanwhile, the conclusion that economic policy uncertainty will increase intelligent investment may provide a perspective for investment decisions under uncertainty and guidance for policy making departments. It is essential to strive to create conditions to raise the expected return of enterprise and reduce investment costs, in which way the smoothing effect on economic fluctuations of intelligent investment will be realized. For local governments, they should strengthen the protection of patent achievements in order to cultivate the culture of innovation and create a better environment that promotes innovation and creativity.#br#
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Received: 10 August 2022
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