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Does Idiosyncratic Business Risk Matter?

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Author Info
Michelacci, Claudio
Schivardi, Fabiano

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Abstract

Financial market imperfections can prevent entrepreneurs from diversifying away the idiosyncratic risk of their business. As a result idiosyncratic risk discourages entrepreneurial activity and hinders growth, with the effects being stronger in economies with lower risk diversification opportunities. In accordance with this prediction we find that OECD countries with low levels of risk diversification opportunities (as measured by the relevance of family firms or of widely held companies) perform relatively worse (in terms of productivity, investment, and business creation) in sectors characterized by high idiosyncratic volatility. Given that volatility is endogenous with respect to risk diversification opportunities, we instrument its value at the country-sector level with the corresponding sectoral volatility in the US, a country where financial imperfections are less relevant than elsewhere. Diversification measures are instrumented using demographic changes induced by World War II. We also provide firm-level evidence suggesting that firms controlled by less diversified owners display lower mean and dispersion of productivity growth.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 6910.

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Date of creation: Jul 2008
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6910

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Related research
Keywords: Entrepreneurship; financial frictions; growth;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
O4 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

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References listed on IDEAS
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Söhnke M. Bartram & Gregory Brown & René M. Stulz, 2009. "Why Do Foreign Firms Have Less Idiosyncratic Risk than U.S. Firms?," NBER Working Papers 14931, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Rui Castro & Gian Luca Clementi & Yoonsoo Lee, 2008. "Cross-sectoral variation in firm-level idiosyncratic risk," Working Paper 0812, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. [Downloadable!]
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