ABSTRACT It is widely established that economic policy uncertainty (EPU) affects investment decisions and performance, yet research in this area has overlooked the direct property investment market. This article seeks to rectify this and proposes a multistage multilevel analytical framework to offer new insights and a richness of findings. Using a news-based measure of EPU in the United Kingdom, and controlling for economic conditions, a national-level analysis reveals some evidence of Granger-Causality between EPU and total returns, indicating that pricing is responsive to uncertainty. These findings suggest that EPU is an important risk factor for direct property investments, with pricing implications. Differences in data and performance measure are important, however, with income returns unresponsive. A micro-level investigation begins to reveal some of the asset-pricing decisions underpinning the national results, indicating investors’ concerns for income streams are consistently high, regardless of varying EPU. Pricing can also cause changes in EPU, such as in the retail and industrial markets (increasingly linked through logistics) reflecting sector-specific stakeholder groups and newsworthy issues. This evidence highlights how important it is for policy-makers to understand the complex and bi-directional relationship, that indecision can undermine investment confidence and cause investment market volatility, in turn raising EPU.

中文翻译：

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经济政策不确定性下的投资决策

摘要经济政策不确定性（EPU）影响投资决策和绩效已广为人知，但该领域的研究却忽视了直接房地产投资市场。本文力求纠正这一点，并提出了一个多阶段，多层次的分析框架，以提供新的见解和丰富的发现。国家层面的分析使用英国基于新闻的EPU度量并控制经济状况，揭示了一些证据表明EPU与总收益之间存在格兰杰因果关系，这表明定价是对不确定性的响应。这些发现表明，EPU是直接房地产投资的重要风险因素，具有价格影响。数据和绩效指标的差异很重要，但是，收入回报没有反应。微观调查开始显示一些支撑国家业绩的资产定价决策，表明投资者对收入流的担忧始终很高，而无论EPU值如何变化。定价还可能导致EPU发生变化，例如零售和工业市场（通过物流越来越紧密地联系在一起），从而反映特定部门的利益相关者群体和具有新闻价值的问题。这些证据凸显了决策者理解复杂的双向关系是多么重要，犹豫不决会破坏投资信心并导致投资市场动荡，进而提高EPU。例如在零售和工业市场（通过物流越来越紧密地联系在一起）反映了特定部门的利益相关者群体和有新闻价值的问题。这些证据凸显了决策者理解复杂的双向关系是多么重要，犹豫不决会破坏投资信心并导致投资市场动荡，进而提高EPU。例如在零售和工业市场（通过物流越来越紧密地联系在一起）反映了特定部门的利益相关者群体和有新闻价值的问题。这些证据凸显了决策者理解复杂的双向关系是多么重要，犹豫不决会破坏投资信心并导致投资市场动荡，进而提高EPU。