Abstract This paper develops an empirical model to investigate the impact of macro-economic risk on working capital and the various types of inventory. Our analysis helps manufacturing firms anticipate the implications of high macro-economic risk, measured through the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index, on their operations. Using a sample of 6503 US manufacturing firms during the period 1990–2018, we show that EPU drives high levels of inventory, thus corroborating existing theories about random disruptions raising safety-stock levels. We also show that increased economic uncertainty yields higher trade credits, payables, and working capital, thus requiring firms to tie more capital to their operations. Our results are statistically significant, yet these effects are small at the firm level. The results are robust when applying the monetary policy uncertainty (MPU) index to the subsample of the data from 1990 to 2007, instead of the EPU index to the same data set.

中文翻译：

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经济不确定性对制造企业库存和营运资金的影响

摘要 本文开发了一个实证模型来研究宏观经济风险对营运资金和各类存货的影响。我们的分析可帮助制造企业预测通过经济政策不确定性 (EPU) 指数衡量的高宏观经济风险对其运营的影响。我们使用 1990 年至 2018 年期间 6503 家美国制造公司的样本，表明 EPU 推动了高库存水平，从而证实了有关随机中断提高安全库存水平的现有理论。我们还表明，经济不确定性的增加会产生更高的贸易信贷、应付账款和营运资金，从而要求公司将更多资金用于其运营。我们的结果在统计上是显着的，但这些影响在公司层面上很小。