IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/doi10.1086-682678.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Entrepreneurs, Risk Aversion, and Dynamic Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Neus Herranz
  • Stefan Krasa
  • Anne P. Villamil

Abstract

How do entrepreneurs vary firm size, capital structure, and default to manage risk? We show that more risk-averse entrepreneurs run smaller, more highly leveraged firms and default less, because running a smaller firm with higher debt reduces personal funds at risk in the firm. Optimal default depends on ex ante debt, consumption forgone from firm liquidation, and owner capacity to inject funds. We show that entrepreneurs sacrifice current consumption in the hope of future success that never materializes for the bottom 25 percent, but entrepreneurship is a path toward great wealth and high consumption for the top quartile.

Suggested Citation

  • Neus Herranz & Stefan Krasa & Anne P. Villamil, 2015. "Entrepreneurs, Risk Aversion, and Dynamic Firms," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(5), pages 1133-1176.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/682678
    DOI: 10.1086/682678
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/682678
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/682678
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/682678?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco Cagetti & Mariacristina De Nardi, 2006. "Entrepreneurship, Frictions, and Wealth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(5), pages 835-870, October.
    2. Glennon, Dennis & Nigro, Peter, 2005. "Measuring the Default Risk of Small Business Loans: A Survival Analysis Approach," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(5), pages 923-947, October.
    3. Hui Chen & Jianjun Miao & Neng Wang, 2010. "Entrepreneurial Finance and Nondiversifiable Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(12), pages 4348-4388, December.
    4. Claudio Michelacci & Vincenzo Quadrini, 2005. "Borrowing from Employees: Wage Dynamics with Financial Constraints," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 360-369, 04/05.
    5. Arturo Bris & Ivo Welch & Ning Zhu, 2006. "The Costs of Bankruptcy: Chapter 7 Liquidation versus Chapter 11 Reorganization," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(3), pages 1253-1303, June.
    6. Igor Livshits & James MacGee & Michèle Tertilt, 2007. "Consumer Bankruptcy: A Fresh Start," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 402-418, March.
    7. Stefan Krasa & Tridib Sharma & Anne Villamil, 2008. "Bankruptcy and firm finance," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 36(2), pages 239-266, August.
    8. Kihlstrom, Richard E & Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1979. "A General Equilibrium Entrepreneurial Theory of Firm Formation Based on Risk Aversion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(4), pages 719-748, August.
    9. Cristina Arellano, 2008. "Default Risk and Income Fluctuations in Emerging Economies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 690-712, June.
    10. Satyajit Chatterjee & Dean Corbae & Makoto Nakajima & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2007. "A Quantitative Theory of Unsecured Consumer Credit with Risk of Default," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(6), pages 1525-1589, November.
    11. Galina Vereshchagina & Hugo A. Hopenhayn, 2009. "Risk Taking by Entrepreneurs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1808-1830, December.
    12. Anna L. Paulson & Robert M. Townsend & Alexander Karaivanov, 2006. "Distinguishing Limited Liability from Moral Hazard in a Model of Entrepreneurship," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 100-144, February.
    13. Fernando Alvarez & Urban J. Jermann, 2000. "Efficiency, Equilibrium, and Asset Pricing with Risk of Default," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(4), pages 775-798, July.
    14. Kartik B. Athreya, 2004. "Shame as it ever was : stigma and personal bankruptcy," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 90(Spr), pages 1-19.
    15. Andrew Glover, 2010. "Bankruptcy, Incorporation, and the Nature of Entrepreneurial Risk," 2010 Meeting Papers 1010, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Florin Bidian & Camelia Bejan, 2015. "Martingale properties of self-enforcing debt," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 60(1), pages 35-57, September.
    17. Gropp, Reint & Boissay, Frédéric, 2007. "Trade credit defaults and liquidity provision by firms," Working Paper Series 753, European Central Bank.
    18. Boyd, John H & Smith, Bruce D, 1994. "How Good Are Standard Debt Contracts? Stochastic versus Nonstochastic Monitoring in a Costly State Verification Environment," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(4), pages 539-561, October.
    19. Townsend, Robert M., 1979. "Optimal contracts and competitive markets with costly state verification," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 265-293, October.
    20. Douglas Gale & Martin Hellwig, 1985. "Incentive-Compatible Debt Contracts: The One-Period Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 52(4), pages 647-663.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Neus Herranz & Stefan Krasa & Anne P. Villamil, 2017. "Entrepreneurs, legal institutions and firm dynamics," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 63(1), pages 263-285, January.
    2. Igor Livshits, 2015. "Recent Developments In Consumer Credit And Default Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 594-613, September.
    3. Akyol, Ahmet & Athreya, Kartik, 2011. "Credit and self-employment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 363-385, March.
    4. Kartik Athreya & Ahmet Akyol, 2007. "Unsecured Credit and Self-Employment," 2007 Meeting Papers 49, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Neus Herranz & Stefan Krasa & Anne Villamil, 2009. "Small firms in the SSBF," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 341-359, June.
    6. Stefan Krasa & Tridib Sharma & Anne Villamil, 2008. "Bankruptcy and firm finance," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 36(2), pages 239-266, August.
    7. Zhixiong Zeng, 2013. "A theory of the non-neutrality of money with banking frictions and bank recapitalization," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 52(2), pages 729-754, March.
    8. Anne Villamil & Stefan Krasa & Tridib Sharma, 2004. "Enforcement and Firm Finance," 2004 Meeting Papers 868, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Athreya, Kartik B., 2014. "Big Ideas in Macroeconomics: A Nontechnical View," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262019736, December.
    10. Dean Corbae & Pablo D’Erasmo, 2021. "Reorganization or Liquidation: Bankruptcy Choice and Firm Dynamics [Does Industry-wide distress Affect Defaulted Firms? Evidence from Creditor Recoveries]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(5), pages 2239-2274.
    11. Yue, Vivian Z., 2010. "Sovereign default and debt renegotiation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 176-187, March.
    12. Mankart, Jochen & Rodano, Giacomo, 2015. "Personal bankruptcy law, debt portfolios, and entrepreneurship," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 157-172.
    13. V. Filipe Martins-Da-Rocha & Toan Phan & Yiannis Vailakis, 2022. "Pecuniary Externalities in Competitive Economies with Limited Pledgeability," Working Papers hal-03909596, HAL.
    14. Ye (George) Jia, 2015. "The impact of personal bankruptcy law on entrepreneurship," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(2), pages 464-493, May.
    15. Meisenzahl, Ralf R., 2014. "Verifying the state of financing constraints: Evidence from U.S. business credit contracts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 58-77.
    16. Cesar Tamayo, 2015. "Investor protection and optimal contracts under risk aversion and costly state verification," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 59(3), pages 547-577, August.
    17. Kartik B. Athreya & Xuan S. Tam & Eric Young, 2009. "Are harsh penalties for default really better?," Working Paper 09-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    18. Youngsoo Jang & Soyoung Lee, 2021. "A Generalized Endogenous Grid Method for Default Risk Models," Staff Working Papers 21-11, Bank of Canada.
    19. Victor Filipe Martins da Rocha & Toan Phan & Yiannis Vailakis, 2019. "Debt Limits and Credit Bubbles in General Equilibrium," Post-Print hal-02429759, HAL.
    20. Ralf R. Meisenzahl, 2011. "Verifying the state of financing constraints: evidence from U.S. business credit contracts," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2011-04, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/682678. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.