We empirically examine the effects of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) of which measurement methodology Baker, Bloom & Davis (2016) propose on the investment and cash holding behaviors of Japanese firms. We also examine spillover effects of EPU of the United States on them. We find that Japanese firms invest less and accumulate more cash when domestic EPU increases. Impacts of subcategories of domestic EPU differs: the uncertainty of fiscal and exchange rate policies are the key drivers of the negative impacts on corporate investment although the predictive power for investment of economic policy uncertainty of exchange rate holds only in the short run. As for the international spillover, we find that economic policy uncertainty in the United States has negative spillover (contagion) effects on corporate investment in Japan. Our findings suggest that Japanese managers become more cautious in making investment decisions as a response not only to higher domestic EPU but also US EPU.

我们通过实证检验了经济政策不确定性 (EPU) 的影响，Baker、Bloom 和 Davis（2016 年）提出了这种衡量方法对日本企业的投资和现金持有行为的影响。我们还考察了美国 EPU 对他们的溢出效应。我们发现，当国内 EPU 增加时，日本公司会减少投资并积累更多现金。国内EPU子类别的影响不同：财政和汇率政策的不确定性是对企业投资产生负面影响的关键驱动因素，尽管汇率经济政策不确定性对投资的预测能力仅在短期内成立。在国际溢出方面，我们发现美国经济政策的不确定性对日本的企业投资具有负面溢出（传染）效应。