IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_11848.html

The Devil Is in the Tail: Macroeconomic Tail Risk Expectations of Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Manuel Menkhoff

Abstract

This paper examines novel survey evidence on firms’ beliefs about macroeconomic tail risk and their role in investment decisions. In a large survey of German firms, I elicit (i) the subjective probability of a severe macroeconomic downturn and (ii) firms’ exposure to such an event. I consistently find across different empirical approaches that a higher probability of a severe macroeconomic downturn substantially lowers investment, particularly for firms that report higher exposure to the event. I attribute less than half of the investment response to changes in firms' subjective first and second moments. In a quantitative heterogeneous firm model calibrated to match the survey evidence, firms' concern with tail risk makes fiscal policy particularly effective for stabilizing investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Manuel Menkhoff, 2025. "The Devil Is in the Tail: Macroeconomic Tail Risk Expectations of Firms," CESifo Working Paper Series 11848, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11848
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp11848.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dimmock, Stephen G. & Kouwenberg, Roy & Mitchell, Olivia S. & Peijnenburg, Kim, 2016. "Ambiguity aversion and household portfolio choice puzzles: Empirical evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(3), pages 559-577.
    2. Christopher Busch & David Domeij & Fatih Guvenen & Rocio Madera, 2022. "Skewed Idiosyncratic Income Risk over the Business Cycle: Sources and Insurance," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 207-242, April.
    3. Tauchen, George, 1986. "Finite state markov-chain approximations to univariate and vector autoregressions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 177-181.
    4. Jessica A. Wachter, 2013. "Can Time-Varying Risk of Rare Disasters Explain Aggregate Stock Market Volatility?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(3), pages 987-1035, June.
    5. Fiori, Giuseppe & Scoccianti, Filippo, 2023. "The economic effects of firm-level uncertainty: Evidence using subjective expectations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 92-105.
    6. Ulrike Malmendier & Stefan Nagel, 2011. "Depression Babies: Do Macroeconomic Experiences Affect Risk Taking?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 373-416.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lea Best & Benjamin Born & Manuel Menkhoff, 2025. "The Impact of Interest: Firms' Investment Sensitivity to Interest Rates," CESifo Working Paper Series 12167, CESifo.
    2. Felix Leiss & Stefan Sauer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2025. "Questions, Measures, and Meaning: Interpreting Indicators from the ifo Business Survey," CESifo Working Paper Series 12094, CESifo.

    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. Duraj, Kamila & Grunow, Daniela & Chaliasos, Michael & Laudenbach, Christine & Siegel, Stephan, 2024. "Rethinking the stock market participation puzzle: A qualitative approach," IMFS Working Paper Series 210, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    2. Duraj, Kamila & Grunow, Daniela & Chaliasos, Michael & Laudenbach, Christine & Siegel, Stephan, 2024. "Rethinking the stock market participation puzzle: A qualitative approach," SAFE Working Paper Series 441, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    3. Kamila Duraj & Daniela Grunow & Michael Haliassos & Christine Laudenbach & Stephan Siegel, 2025. "Rethinking the Stock Market Participation Puzzle: A Qualitative Approach," CESifo Working Paper Series 11980, CESifo.
    4. Sias, Richard & Starks, Laura T. & Turtle, H.J., 2023. "The negativity bias and perceived return distributions: Evidence from a pandemic," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 627-657.
    5. Bender, Svetlana & Choi, James J. & Dyson, Danielle & Robertson, Adriana Z., 2022. "Millionaires speak: What drives their personal investment decisions?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 305-330.
    6. Barberis, Nicholas & Greenwood, Robin & Jin, Lawrence & Shleifer, Andrei, 2015. "X-CAPM: An extrapolative capital asset pricing model," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 1-24.
    7. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    8. John Ameriks & Gábor Kézdi & Minjoon Lee & Matthew D. Shapiro, 2020. "Heterogeneity in Expectations, Risk Tolerance, and Household Stock Shares: The Attenuation Puzzle," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 633-646, July.
    9. Schäfer, Dorothea & Stephan, Andreas & Weser, Henriette, 2023. "Crisis stress for the diversity of financial portfolios — evidence from European households," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 330-347.
    10. Lars A. Lochstoer & Tyler Muir, 2022. "Volatility Expectations and Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(2), pages 1055-1096, April.
    11. Ian Martin, 2017. "What is the Expected Return on the Market?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(1), pages 367-433.
    12. Jean Paul Rabanal & Aleksei Chernulich & John Horowitz & Olga A. Rud & Manizha Sharifova, 2019. "Market timing under public and private information," Working Papers 151, Peruvian Economic Association.
    13. repec:oup:qjecon:v:132:y:2016:i:1:p:367-433. is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Berrada, Tony & Detemple, Jérôme & Rindisbacher, Marcel, 2018. "Asset pricing with beliefs-dependent risk aversion and learning," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(3), pages 504-534.
    15. Tyler Muir, 2017. "Financial Crises and Risk Premia," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(2), pages 765-809.
    16. Galindo Gil, Hamilton & Mendoza Perez, Liu, 2025. "Dollarization hysteresis, inflation jumps, and fear of inflation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    17. Jonathan Huntley & Valentina Michelangeli & Felix Reichling, 2021. "What drives investors to chase returns?," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1334, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    18. Meister, Lorenz & Menkhoff, Lukas & Schröder, Carsten, 2025. "Stock market participation, work from home, and inequality," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    19. Brunet, Gillian & Hilt, Eric & Jaremski, Matthew, 2025. "‘Invest!’: Liberty bonds and stock ownership over the twentieth century," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    20. Gao, Ming & Liu, Yu-Jane & Shi, Yushui, 2020. "Do people feel less at risk? Evidence from disaster experience," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(3), pages 866-888.
    21. Ellora Derenoncourt & Chi Hyun Kim & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick, 2023. "Unemployment Risk, Portfolio Choice, and the Racial Wealth Gap," Working Papers 332, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_11848. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.