Replication files for "Uncertainty and Change: Survey Evidence of Firms’ Subjective Beliefs"

This paper studies how managers plan under uncertainty. In a new panel survey of German manufacturing firms, we observe both forecasts of sales growth and a quantitative measure of subjective uncertainty. We show that subjective uncertainty reflects change experienced by firms: it is high when growth is either unusually low or unusually high. Subjective uncertainty is more than conditional volatility: while more volatile firms are typically more uncertain, experienced change alone increases uncertainty, consistent with a model of learning. Uncertainty over our sample is mostly idiosyncratic but varies substantially over time and leads managers to plan lower employment and prices.
Data access:

The replication code for generating the results - provided you have all the required data sets - is going to be made publicly available for download on this website. A full replication package, which includes program code and data to replicate the results, is only accessible on the premises of the EBDC (on-site) upon written request.

本研究探讨管理者在不确定性环境下的决策规划行为。我们基于一项针对德国制造业企业的全新面板调研，同时获取了企业的销售增长预测数据与主观不确定性的量化测度指标。研究表明，主观不确定性反映了企业经历的经营变化：当销售增长处于异常偏低或异常偏高的状态时，企业的主观不确定性水平更高。主观不确定性并非仅等同于条件波动率：尽管波动率更高的企业通常不确定性水平也更高，但仅经营变化本身就会提升不确定性，这与学习模型的理论预期一致。本研究样本中的不确定性大多属于异质性不确定性，但随时间呈现显著波动，且会促使管理者制定缩减雇佣与降价的规划。

数据获取方式：
若已获取全部所需数据集，可用于复现研究结果的代码将在本网站面向公众开放下载。包含复现研究结果所需程序代码与数据的完整复现包，仅可通过书面申请后，在欧洲企业数据中心（EBDC）的现场办公区域获取。