Exchange rate volatility, uncertainty, and investment: evidence for Brazilian companies (1997-2019)

Abstract

This research analyzes the effects of exchange rate uncertainties on the investment of publicly traded companies in Brazil. Based on a theoretical framework and a review of the literature on the relationship between foreign exchange and investments, an empirical investigation was carried out by using the dynamic data analysis for 24 sectors of the manufacturing industry, grouped into four sectors according to the intensity of the factors used in production: (i) intensive in natural resources; (ii) labor intensive; (iii) intensive in scale; and (iv) intensive in technology. The database comprises the period of 1997 to 2019 and was obtained from the financial statements of 309 companies in the manufacturing industry extracted from the Economática database, in addition to variables obtained from Ipeadata and the Brazilian Central Bank (BCB). In line with the theoretical and empirical literature on the subject, the main empirical results of the research indicated that the estimated coefficient of the exchange rate volatility was not significant only for the group of companies whose intensity of productive factors are natural resources. For all other groups, this coefficient was statistically significant, indicating that exchange rate volatility affects the investment of the domestic industries, especially those intensive in technology, in the considered period.