We examine the effect of aggregate economic policy uncertainty (EPU; Baker et al., 2016) on firms’ asymmetric cost reaction to sales changes (cost stickiness). We find that cost stickiness decreases with EPU in the United States (US) after we control for the positive relationship between cost stickiness and election years (Lee et al., 2020). This result is consistent with managers revising down their expectations of future demand and adjustment costs during high-EPU years, causing them to drastically cut operating costs. The stickiness of cost of goods sold and number of employees are particularly sensitive to EPU. The duration of EPU appears to be an important factor in explaining this negative relationship. EPU directly affects firms that depend on government spending and belong to highly regulated industries. EPU also indirectly affect all firms via its impacts on the aggregate economy and funding costs. We use an international sample to confirm the result and to explore the institutional factors that moderate the effect of EPU on cost stickiness.

我们研究了总体经济政策不确定性（EPU； Baker等，2016）对企业对销售变化的非对称成本反应（成本粘性）的影响。我们发现，在控制了成本粘性和选举年之间的正相关关系之后，美国的EPU成本粘性降低了（Lee等人，2020年）。这一结果与经理人在高EPU年份下调了对未来需求和调整成本的期望相一致，从而导致他们大幅削减了运营成本。货物成本的粘性和员工人数对EPU尤为敏感。EPU的持续时间似乎是解释这种负面关系的重要因素。EPU直接影响那些依赖政府支出且属于高度管制行业的公司。EPU还通过影响总经济和融资成本而间接影响所有公司。我们使用国际样本来确认结果，并探索可减轻EPU对成本粘性影响的制度因素。