• Seminari: «Stroke of a Pen: Investment and Stock Returns under Energy Policy Uncertainty»

  • Inici: Divendres, 05 febrer 12:00
    Fi: Divendres, 05 febrer 13:00
  • Universitat de les Illes Balears, Carretera de Valldemossa, Palma, Espanya
  • A les 12 hores.

    En línia.

    A càrrec de Juan Felipe Imbet (Finance).

    Energy policy uncertainty - as measured by uncertainty about a U.S. President signing an energy related executive order in the future - covaries positively with corporate investment and aggregate consumption growth, and its innovations carry a negative price of risk. I propose and test a q-theory explanation in which firms invest in energy-efficient capital when facing energy policy uncertainty.  This uncertainty amplifies differences in investment between growth and  value companies as the benefits of substituting energy for capital increase with growth oppor- tunities. As the benefits to invest increase, aggregate current consumption decreases relative to future consumption, creating time varying expected variation in aggregate market returns and consumption growth. Without an investment factor, uncertainty betas explain cross-sectional variation in stock returns across portfolios that differ in their growth opportunities. However,  since investment reacts to uncertainty endogenously, an asset pricing model that accounts for an investment factor absorbs the cross-sectional differences in expected returns explained by this policy uncertainty. My findings suggest that uncertainty about future energy policies in the last four decades can explain firms’ adoption of energy-efficient capital.

    You can find the full paper here