Oil price returns and firm's fixed investment: A production pattern

Abstract

This paper aims to enlarge the acquaintance with the influence of oil price returns on fixed investment of all Chinese non-financial listed companies. According to our empirical results, oil price returns have a statistically and economically significant and negative predictive power for firm's fixed investment. Other main findings can be summarized as follows: (i) this oil return effect is robust and consistent even considering oil shocks and its different sources; (ii) the heterogeneities of this effect across industries and industrial layers present a “production pattern”; (iii) a composite cost and the financing constraints theory reveal the heterogeneities across firms with varying financial constraints, investment irreversibility, and industry competition; (iv) a combination of changes in demand stimulation and cost pressures contributes to the asymmetric impacts of oil price returns, which vary throughout the oil prices distribution.