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Why is There a Secular Decline in Idiosyncratic Risk in the 2000s?

Author

Listed:
  • Bartram, Sohnke M.

    (Warwick Business School - Department of Finance)

  • Brown, Gregory W.

    (University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill - Finance Area)

  • Stulz, Rene M.

    (Ohio State University (OSU) - Department of Finance; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI))

Abstract

Except for relatively short but intense episodes of high market risk, average idiosyncratic risk (IR) falls steadily after 2000 until almost the end of our sample period in 2017. The decrease has been such that from 2012 to 2017 average IR was lower than any time since 1965. The secular decline can be explained by the fact that U.S. publicly listed firms have become larger, older, and their stock more liquid. The same changes that bring about historically low IR lead to increasingly high market-model R-squareds.

Suggested Citation

  • Bartram, Sohnke M. & Brown, Gregory W. & Stulz, Rene M., 2019. "Why is There a Secular Decline in Idiosyncratic Risk in the 2000s?," Working Paper Series 2019-19, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:ohidic:2019-19
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    File URL: http://ssrn.com/abstract=3450845
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    Cited by:

    1. Rüdiger Fahlenbrach & Kevin Rageth & René M Stulz, 2021. "How Valuable Is Financial Flexibility when Revenue Stops? Evidence from the COVID-19 Crisis [The risk of being a fallen angel and the corporate dash for cash in the midst of COVID]," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 34(11), pages 5474-5521.
    2. John Y. Campbell & Martin Lettau & Burton Malkiel & Yexiao Xu, 2023. "Idiosyncratic Equity Risk Two Decades Later," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 12(1-4), pages 203-223, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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