Corporate Investment Behavior in the Japanese Economy(in Japanese)

The purpose of the paper is to examine what kind of investment theory can explain the recent movements in corporate investment in Japan. To explain the drastic decline in corporate investment in the wake of the bubble economy, economists applied Tobin's Q theory with liquidity constraints or uncertainty in sales or profits to empirical studies on investment behavior. On the other hand, the investment spike induced by the behavior under uncertainty is likely to generate overinvestment if many firms undertake large investments simultaneously. Using probit estimation, we examine the determinants of the investment spike. In this estimation, we find that not only Tobin's Q and cash flow but also simultaneous investment behavior affects investment spikes.