Professor Guochao Yang, a researcher of the base, has published a collaborative paper titled "Heterogeneous uncertainty matters! Evidence based on firms’ cost management decisions" in Emerging Markets Review.

Emerging Markets Review is an internationally authoritative academic journal (SSCI Q1) specializing in economic, financial, and business research on emerging markets. The journal covers cutting-edge topics including macroeconomic policies, regional cooperation, institutional analysis, and fintech innovations.

Abstract:

The literature traditionally treats the uncertainty firms encounter as a whole, neglecting the inherent heterogeneity of uncertainty that prevails in the real world. To address this critical issue, this study employs natural language processing methods to decompose uncertainty into three distinct levels: firm-level, industry-level, and macro-level uncertainty. We then examine the impact of heterogeneous uncertainty on corporate decision-making from a cost management perspective. Our findings indicate that while uncertainty as a whole increases cost stickiness, this effect mainly stems from firm-level uncertainty rather than industry-level and macro-level uncertainty. These findings suggest that firms only respond to uncertainty when they perceive uncertainty at the firm level. Cross-sectional tests indicate that the impact of uncertainty on cost stickiness is more pronounced when firms face higher adjustment costs, lower financing constraints, and lower competitive pressures than otherwise. Additionally, uncertainty diminishes firms' cost elasticity, curtailing their production flexibility. Collectively, our results provide insights into comprehending the internal mechanisms of firms' decision-making in the face of uncertainty.

Keywords：Heterogeneous uncertainty; Cost stickiness; Firms' decision-making

Link：https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ememar.2024.101210

Teacher profile

Guochao Yang, Professor of the school of accounting, Zhongnan University of economics and law, director of the big data center of "income distribution and modern financial discipline innovation and talent introduction base" of the Ministry of education and the Ministry of science and technology, and Wenlan young scholar. The papers have been published in (including to be published) Economic Research (4), management world, China Economic Quarterly (4), world economy, financial research, accounting research (2), China Journal of Accounting Studies (2) and other top-level domestic academic journals. He has won the 2017 China Financial Research Conference (CFRC) best paper award, the first prize of the 12th Hubei social science outstanding achievement award, the first prize of the 16th Wuhan social science outstanding achievement award, the "top ten papers" of the first China empirical research (Finance) paper competition, the special prize of the annual accounting excellent paper of Hubei Accounting Society (twice), and the 2019 national MPAcc excellent teaching cases. He presided over the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of education and a number of projects in Hubei Province.