The effect of oil price uncertainty on corporate investment in the presence of growth options: Evidence from listed companies in China (1998–2019)

We empirically investigate the effect of oil price uncertainty on corporate investment in the presence of growth options using the financial data of listed firms in China from 1998 to 2019. We reveal three key findings in this paper. First, we find that oil price uncertainty has a U-shaped nonlinear effect on corporate investment. In periods of low uncertainty, oil price uncertainty negatively influences corporate investment. However, in periods of high uncertainty, oil price uncertainty positively influences corporate investment. Second, research has found that the U-shaped nonlinear effect is moderated by the irreversibility and growth opportunities of investment decisions. Third, further analyses reveal that this U-shaped nonlinear effect can be changed by a firm’s characteristics. Specifically, this nonlinear effect can only be observed in non-state-owned enterprises and small firms. We test the robustness of our findings and propose several policy suggestions.     

Markov Switching Oil Price Uncertainty

We investigate whether the United States economy responds negatively to oil price uncertainty and whether oil price shocks exert asymmetric effects on economic activity. In doing so, we relax the assumption in the existing literature that the data are governed by a single process, modifying the Elder and Serletis (2010) bivariate structural GARCH‐in‐Mean VAR to accommodate Markov regime switching in order to account for changing oil price dynamics over the sample period. We find evidence of asymmetries, against those macroeconomic theories that predict symmetries in the relationship between real aggregate economic activity and the real price of oil.     

Real‐time forecast combinations for the oil price

Baumeister and Kilian (Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 2015, 33(3), 338–351) combine forecasts from six empirical models to predict real oil prices. In this paper, we broadly reproduce their main economic findings, employing their preferred measures of the real oil price and other real‐time variables. Mindful of the importance of Brent crude oil as a global price benchmark, we extend consideration to the North Sea‐based measure and update the evaluation sample to 2017:12. We model the oil price futures curve using a factor‐based Nelson–Siegel specification estimated in real time to fill in missing values for oil price futures in the raw data. We find that the combined forecasts for Brent are as effective as for other oil price measures. The extended sample using the oil price measures adopted by Baumeister and Kilian yields similar results to those reported in their paper. Also, the futures‐based model improves forecast accuracy at longer horizons.     

基于实物期权的风险投资项目评价分析

风险投资项目与其他项目相比不确定性更大,在传统投资决策方法下,风险投资项目的不确定性使项目的投资价值更低,而实物期权方法作为一种新的投资决策方法为风险项目投资中不确定性问题提供了一种解决的思路。尝试把实物期权理论引入到风险投资项目评估中,并把传统方法与实物期权方法结合起来,旨在完善风险投资项目的评价方法。最后得出结论,实物期权方法为投资者继续投资提供了科学的依据,其在风险项目投资决策中的应用具有重要意义。     

Economic uncertainty,oil prices,hedging and U.S. stock returns of the airline industry

This paper examines the impacts of economic policy uncertainty and oil price shocks on stock returns of U.S. airlines using both industry and firm-level data. Our empirical approach considers a structural vector-autoregressive model with variables recognized to be important for airline returns including jet fuel price volatility. Empirical results confirm that oil price increase, economic uncertainty and jet fuel price volatility have significantly adverse effect on real stock returns of airlines both at industry and at firm level. In addition, we also find that hedging future fuel purchase has statistically positive impact on the smaller airlines. Our results suggest policy implications for practitioners, managers of airline industry and commodity investors.     

Speculation in the Oil Market

The run‐up in oil prices since 2004 coincided with growing investment in commodity markets and increased price co‐movement among different commodities. We assess whether speculation in the oil market played a role in driving this salient empirical pattern. We identify oil shocks from a large dataset using a dynamic factor model. This method is motivated by the fact that a small‐scale vector autoregression is not informationally sufficient to identify the shocks. The main results are as follows. (i) While global demand shocks account for the largest share of oil price fluctuations, speculative shocks are the second most important driver. (ii) The increase in oil prices over the last decade is mainly driven by the strength of global demand. However, speculation played a significant role in the oil price increase between 2004 and 2008 and its subsequent collapse. (iii) The co‐movement between oil prices and the prices of other commodities is mainly explained by global demand shocks. Our results support the view that the recent oil price increase is mainly driven by the strength of global demand but that the financialization process of commodity markets also played a role. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evidence of irreversibility in the UK property market

The real options approach to valuation of property investment suggests that various sources of uncertainty about future returns on investment have important effects on irreversible property investment decisions. Our aim in this study has been to examine how investment decisions at three main stages of the property development/investment processes respond to different sources of uncertainty. Based on the methodology developed by Episcopos (1995), the neo-classical proposition of Hartman-Abel that predicts a positive investment-uncertainty relationship is tested against that proposed by the real option theory. It is interesting to note that our empirical findings are generally consistent with the prediction of the real option theory that uncertainty increases the option value to wait for the arrival of new information thus decreasing the current investment activities. In periods of high volatility, we would expect investors in the property market to be more prudent and scale down their investment exposure to market volatility compared with periods of a relatively stable market environment.     

Temporary workers as real options

Firms experiencing or anticipating substantial workforce expansion face increasing pressure to accurately project the costs associated with human asset investments and potential future layoff requirements. With that in mind, the decision whether to take on temporary workers in lieu of hiring permanent employees is a decision that involves significant risk. Traditional valuation methods assume that investments are fully reversible and thus do not capture the idiosyncrasies of workforce management, in which investments are not fully reversible. However, real options theory offers managers the ability to consider irreversibility and to make workforce investment decisions under conditions of minimum uncertainty and maximum flexibility. We present real options theory as an especially useful means for managers to more accurately value human asset investment decisions, achieve expansion and defer commitment until future uncertainties can be at least partially resolved.     

The R&D Investment–Uncertainty Relationship: Do Strategic Rivalry and Firm Size Matter?

This paper uses a real options perspective to augment a standard research and development (R&D) investment model and implement a firm‐level empirical analysis to assess the practical significance of market uncertainty and its interactions with strategic rivalry and firm size. We use a measure of firm‐relevant market uncertainty along with panel data and find that firms invest less in current R&D as uncertainty about market returns increases. The effect of firm‐specific uncertainty on R&D investment is smaller in markets where strategic rivalry is likely to be more intense. Furthermore, holding access to financing constant, the effect of uncertainty on R&D investment is attenuated for large firms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Macroeconomic Effects of Precautionary Demand for Oil

We evaluate the macroeconomic effects of shocks specific to the oil market, which mainly reflect fluctuations in precautionary demand for oil driven by uncertainty about future supplies. A two‐stage identification procedure is used. First, daily changes in the futures–spot price spread proxy for precautionary demand shocks and the path of oil prices is estimated. This information is then exploited to restrict the oil price response in a vector autoregression. Impulse responses suggest that such shocks reduce output and raise prices. Historical decomposition shows that they contributed significantly to the US recessions in the 1990s and in the early 2000s, but not to the most recent slump. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Price uncertainty, saving, and welfare

We analyze how commodity price uncertainty affects saving behavior and welfare in a dynamic model with multiple commodities, portfolio hedging, and a preference structure that disentangles ordinal preferences, attitudes towards risk, and attitudes towards intertemporal substitution. We show that the effect of price uncertainty on savings boils down to knowing (1) hf degree of resistance to intertemporal substitution and (2) the effect that uncertainty has on the certainty-equivalent real interest rate. We also show that, if the certainty-equivalent real interest rate is lower with uncertainty, consumers' welfare is also lower.     

Does Short Selling Enhance the Allocational Role of Stock Price? Evidence from Hong Kong

We investigate the real effect of short selling on corporate investments and, in particular, examine whether short selling improves managerial learning from stock prices in making investment decisions. We find that short selling improves investment sensitivity to stock price, most likely through a channel that short selling increases stock price informativeness. Using the lifting of uptick rule for index arbitrageurs and market makers as an exogenous shock to short selling intensity, we confirm the causal effect of short selling on managerial learning. Overall, our evidence suggests that short selling enhances the role of stock price in resource allocation.     

基于实物期权的房地产最优开发时机

本文主要利用实物期权定价理论,结合房地产实际投资状况,通过处理房地产开发项目的单位价格和单位建设成本之间的相互影响,建立了关于价格与成本之间的房地产最优投资决策时机模型,探讨了房地产开发的最适时机的选择问题。     

THE ROLE OF TIME‐VARYING PRICE ELASTICITIES IN ACCOUNTING FOR VOLATILITY CHANGES IN THE CRUDE OIL MARKET

There has been a systematic increase in the volatility of the real price of crude oil since 1986, followed by a decline in the volatility of oil production since the early 1990s. We explore reasons for this evolution. We show that a likely explanation of this empirical fact is that both the short‐run price elasticities of oil demand and of oil supply have declined considerably since the second half of the 1980s. This implies that small disturbances on either side of the oil market can generate large price responses without large quantity movements, which helps explain the latest run‐up and subsequent collapse in the price of oil. Our analysis suggests that the variability of oil demand and supply shocks actually has decreased in the more recent past, preventing even larger oil price fluctuations than observed in the data. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The firm under uncertainty: real and financial decisions

This paper examines the interplay between the real and financial decisions of the competitive firm under output price uncertainty. The firm faces additional sources of uncertainty that are aggregated into a background risk. We show that the firm always chooses its optimal debt–equity ratio to minimize the weighted average cost of capital, irrespective of the risk attitude of the firm and the incidence of the underlying uncertainty. We further show that the firm’s optimal input mix depends on its optimal debt–equity ratio, thereby rendering the interdependence of the real and financial decisions of the firm. When the background risk is either additive or multiplicative, we provide reasonable restrictions on the firm’s preferences so as to ensure that the firm’s optimal output is adversely affected upon the introduction of the background risk.     

The impact of capacity expansion on the market value of the firm

This paper empirically investigates the impact of capacity expansion decisions on the market value of the firm. Event study methodology is used to estimate the abnormal change in stock prices around capacity expansion decision announcements. On the day of the announcement, the magnitude of the price change is abnormally high, evidenced by a significantly positive mean standardized square of the abnormal change (Beaver's U-statistic). We also analyze factors that we could affect the direction and magnitude of the abnormal change in the stock prices. We find that the change in price on the day of the announcement is positively and significantly related to the real growth rate of the industry, and negatively and significantly related to the variability of demand. A negative relationship between the price change and industry capacity utilization is also found which can have important implications for companies which follow the wait-and-see approach to capacity expansion decisions. We also find management ownership to be a significant predictor in explaining stock price changes around these announcements.     

实物期权在投资决策中的运用

本文通过引入实物期权的思想为投资决策评价,运用布莱克—舒尔斯和二叉树期权定价模型,给战略投资隐含的实物期权定价,使用蒙特卡罗方法来消除关键因素的不确定带来的影响。     

THE ROLE OF INVENTORIES AND SPECULATIVE TRADING IN THE GLOBAL MARKET FOR CRUDE OIL

We develop a structural model of the global market for crude oil that for the first time explicitly allows for shocks to the speculative demand for oil as well as shocks to flow demand and flow supply. The speculative component of the real price of oil is identified with the help of data on oil inventories. Our estimates rule out explanations of the 2003–2008 oil price surge based on unexpectedly diminishing oil supplies and based on speculative trading. Instead, this surge was caused by unexpected increases in world oil consumption driven by the global business cycle. There is evidence, however, that speculative demand shifts played an important role during earlier oil price shock episodes including 1979, 1986 and 1990. Our analysis implies that additional regulation of oil markets would not have prevented the 2003–2008 oil price surge. We also show that, even after accounting for the role of inventories in smoothing oil consumption, our estimate of the short‐run price elasticity of oil demand is much higher than traditional estimates from dynamic models that do not account for for the endogeneity of the price of oil. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

商业地产分期开发期权价值分析

开发企业采取分期开发方式,可以利用项目未知信息中蕴涵的机会给项目带来进一步选择的灵活性,以扩大项目价值。传统投资决策方法只适用于短期的、确定性高的一次性投资项目,而实物期权理论却是探讨分期开发投资的一种有效工具。采用Geske推导的复合看涨期权定价公式以及B-S简单看涨期权定价模型,构建分期开发期权价值计算模型,求解分期开发期权价值大小。该模型合理地评估了商业地产分期开发期权价值的大小,可以作为商业地产开发商进行投资决策的依据。     

Macroeconomic Uncertainty and Oil Price Volatility

This paper shows that higher macroeconomic uncertainty causes higher oil price volatility. Regimes of low and high uncertainty are identified in a threshold VAR model in which the effects of structural oil demand and supply shocks are estimated. The results show that higher macroeconomic uncertainty, as measured by global industrial production volatility, significantly increases the sensitivity of oil prices to shocks in oil demand and supply. This occurs as uncertainty lowers the price elasticity of oil demand and supply. The difference in the estimated oil price elasticities is economically meaningful as the price impact of a similar change in oil production might double when it hits the economy in uncertain times. As such, varying uncertainty can explain why oil price volatility is typically higher during periods such as financial crises and recessions, and why oil price volatility changes over time more generally.