The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of economic policy uncertainty on firms’ investment decisions. We focus on Spain for the period 1998–2014. To measure policy-related uncertainty, we borrow the economic policy uncertainty (EPU) indicator available for this country. We find strong evidence that uncertainty reduces corporate investment. This relationship appears to be nonlinear, being the marginal effect of uncertainty attenuated toward zero during periods of high uncertainty levels. Furthermore, the heterogeneous results suggest that the adverse effect of uncertainty is particularly relevant for highly vulnerable firms. Overall, these results are consistent with the hypotheses that economic policy-related uncertainty reduces corporate investment through increases in precautionary savings or to worsening of credit conditions.

本文的目的是研究经济政策的不确定性对企业投资决策的影响。我们专注于 1998 年至 2014 年期间的西班牙。为了衡量与政策相关的不确定性，我们借用了该国家可用的经济政策不确定性 (EPU) 指标。我们发现强有力的证据表明不确定性会减少企业投资。这种关系似乎是非线性的，即不确定性的边际效应在高度不确定性水平期间衰减到零。此外，异质性结果表明不确定性的不利影响与高度脆弱的公司特别相关。总体而言，这些结果与经济政策相关的不确定性通过增加预防性储蓄或信贷条件恶化而减少企业投资的假设一致。