This study investigates how monetary policy uncertainty shapes corporate investment efficiency based on an unbalanced panel of 5,090 Chinese A-share listed firms over the period 2011–2024. The findings indicate that heightened monetary policy uncertainty leads to a significant deterioration in investment efficiency. This relationship remains stable after adopting alternative measures, introducing lagged terms, removing observations from the COVID-19 period, and applying instrumental-variable estimation. Mechanism analysis shows that tighter financing constraints and lower R&D expenditure constitute two important channels underlying this effect. The negative influence is particularly evident among capital-intensive and technology-intensive firms, state-owned enterprises, and firms characterized by CEO duality. Moreover, an upgraded human capital structure enhances firms’ capacity to absorb policy-related shocks and weakens the adverse effect of monetary policy uncertainty. These findings advance the understanding of firm-level responses to macroeconomic policy uncertainty and offer practical insights into policy communication, innovation financing, human capital allocation, and corporate investment management.
Hao et al. (Wed,) studied this question.