Aggregate Investment and Tobin's Q: The Evidence from Britain
Aggregate Investment and Tobin's Q: The Evidence from Britain
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总投资与托宾Q：来自英国的证据
DOI：
10.1093/oxfordjournals.oep.a041504
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发表时间：
1981
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
N. Oulton
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
N. Oulton
托宾(Tobin)(1969)和托宾和布雷纳德(Tobin And Brainard)(1968)和(1977)提出了Q--定义为企业市值与其资产重置成本之比--是总投资的重要决定因素的想法，尽管他们承认这一概念的萌芽可以在凯恩斯(Keynes)(1936年，第151页)等早期作家中找到。Ciccolo(1975)1和冯·弗斯滕伯格(1977)对美国的Q与总投资的关系进行了实证研究。Q理论并不一定与其他投资理论不一致。事实上，正如在第二节中详细论述的那样，包含Q的投资函数可以从使用诸如边际效率和资本成本等传统概念的“期望资本存量”模型中推导出来。Q理论最大的经验优势是Q是容易观察到的，至少在原则上是可以观察到的，而边际效率和资本成本则不是。本文的目的是评估Q对英国投资的重要性和数量重要性。为此，对1960年：4(可获得的最早日期)至1977年：2期间进行了Q估计。所用总投资的概念是工商业公司的实际季度总投资，与Q估计数相同的一组公司。最近对英国总投资的研究包括Agarwala和Goodson(1969)、Hines和Catephres(1970)、Feldstein和Flemming(1971)、King(1972)、Boatwright和Eaton(1972)和Peterson(1976)。更早的研究是由Lund(1971)调查的。这些研究中使用的总投资的概念、时间段和理论结构与目前的研究有很大的不同。例如，King(1974)研究了英国制造业在厂房和机械方面的总投资
THE idea that Q—defined as the ratio of the market value of firms to the replacement cost of their assets—is an important determinant of aggregate investment has been advanced by Tobin (1969) and Tobin and Brainard (1968) and (1977), though as they acknowledge the germ of the notion can be found in earlier writers such as Keynes (1936, p. 151). The relationship of Q to aggregate investment has been studied empirically for the US by Ciccolo (1975) 1 and by von Furstenberg (1977). The Q theory is not necessarily inconsistent with other investment theories. Indeed, as argued in detail in Section 2, an investment function containing Q can be derived from a" desired stock of capital" model which employs such traditional concepts as the marginal efficiency and the cost of capital. The great empirical advantage of the Q theory is that Q is readily observable, at least in principle, whereas the marginal efficiency and the cost of capital are not.The purpose of the present paper is to assess the significance and quantitative importance of Q for investment in Britain. To this end, estimates of Q have been made for the period 1960: 4 (the earliest available date) to 1977: 2. The concept of aggregate investment employed is real gross quarterly investment by industrial and commercial companies, the same group of companies as the Q estimates are for. Recent studies of aggregate investment in Britain include Agarwala and Goodson (1969), Hines and Catephores (1970), Feldstein and Flemming (1971), King (1972), Boatwright and Eaton (1972) and Peterson (1976). Earlier studies are surveyed by Lund (1971). The concept of aggregate investment, the time period and the theoretical structure employed in these studies differs greatly from the present one. For example, King (1974) studies gross investment in plant and machinery by UK manufacturing