Effects of Economic Policy Uncertainty on the Investment Behavior of Venture Capital Institutions: Evidence from China

Abstract

Venture capital (VC) has played an important financial supplementary role in the development of high-tech enterprises. With the intensification of economic policy uncertainty, VC investment behavior has been affected to a certain extent. Under the framework of the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on general corporate investment behavior, this article examines the impact of EPU on the investment behavior of VC institutions from four aspects, namely, investment quantity, investment phase, investment industry, and investment region. The study finds that in China, EPU has a good news effect, and its intensification can boost the investment quantity of VC institutions and stimulate institutions to choose more specialized investment strategies in terms of investment phase, investment industry, and investment region. The impact of EPU on the investment behavior of VC institutions changes with the investment state of the institutions. The larger the investment quantity of the VC institutions, the greater the promotion effect. VC institutions with a higher degree of investment concentration will pay more attention to specialized investment strategies.