Abstract:
Enhancing the resilience of industrial and supply chains is an important task in current economic work. Existing discussions mostly focus on the direct impacts of objective shocks such as trade frictions and demand fluctuations, while paying insufficient attention to the cross-firm transmission of firms' subjective uncertainty perception along the supply chain. Based on matched supply chain data of A-share listed companies in the Yangtze River Delta, this paper finds that upstream firms' perception of economic policy uncertainty significantly reduces the supply chain resilience of downstream firms. The underlying mechanisms are fourfold. First, upstream firms reduce innovation investment, constraining their product upgrading, technological iteration, and collaborative innovation capabilities, which makes it difficult for downstream firms to adjust production in a timely manner when facing supply changes. Second, upstream firms reduce long-term cooperation arrangements, lowering the level of information sharing and coordination between upstream and downstream firms, and increasing the uncertainty in downstream firms' production planning and inventory management. Third, upstream firms slow down digital transformation, reducing supply chain information transparency and coordination efficiency, and increasing the difficulty for downstream firms to obtain timely access to key information such as supply, inventory, and logistics. Fourth, upstream firms lower their level of risk-taking, leading to contraction in investment and production inputs, reduced provision of trade credit, and shortened credit terms, thereby increasing the production and adjustment pressure on downstream firms. Further analysis reveals that the above negative effects are mainly observed in provinces with high production collaboration and transaction dependence between upstream and downstream firms, the secondary industry exhibiting strong rigidity in resource allocation or high policy sensitivity, and state-owned enterprises that are more sensitive to changes in economic policy uncertainty. In addition, supply chain finance and geopolitical risk buffer and amplify the above transmission effect respectively. This paper extends research on the economic consequences of firms' economic policy uncertainty perception from the perspective of supply chain transmission, and provides new empirical evidence for preventing the spread of subjective risks along the industrial chain and for enhancing supply chain resilience.
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