Uncertainty, Instability, and Irreversible Investment: Theory, Evidence, and Lessons for Africa
Uncertainty, Instability, and Irreversible Investment: Theory, Evidence, and Lessons for Africa
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不确定性、不稳定性和不可逆转的投资：理论、证据和非洲的教训
DOI：
10.1596/1813-9450-1722
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发表时间：
1999
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
L. Serven
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
L. Serven
最近（但迅速增长）的文献关注不确定性和不稳定性如何影响固定投资项目的采用。该文献表明，如果固定投资项目成本高昂或无法逆转，不确定性可能会成为投资的强大威慑因素。作者回顾了有关不可逆投资的文献，以确定对宏观经济政策的影响，并衡量不确定性与投资之间联系的实际重要性，特别是对于撒哈拉以南非洲地区。他使用横截面时间序列数据提供了投资绩效与不稳定指标之间负相关的经验证据。这些证据表明，不稳定和不确定性是过去二十年非洲投资记录不佳的重要因素。
A recent (but rapidly growing) literature has focused on how uncertainty and instability affect the adoption of fixed investment projects. That literature shows that if fixed investment projects are costly or impossible to reverse, uncertainty can become a powerful deterrent to investment. The author reviews the literature on irreversible investment to identify the implications for macroeconomic policy and to gauge the practical importance, especially for sub-Saharan Africa, of the link between uncertainty and investment. He presents empirical evidence on the negative association between investment performance and measures of instability, using cross-section time-series data. That evidence suggests that instability and uncertainty are important factors in Africa's poor investment record over the last two decades.