Using a large panel of firms across the world from 1991-2006, we show that the median foreign firm has lower idiosyncratic risk than a comparable U.S. firm. Country characteristics help explain variation in the level of idiosyncratic risk, but less so than firm characteristics. Idiosyncratic...

Although firm financial policies were affected by a credit contraction during the recent financial crisis, the impact of increased uncertainty and decreased growth opportunities was stronger than that of the credit contraction per se. From the start of the financial crisis (third quarter of...

We examine the interaction of economic and policy uncertainty in a dynamic, heterogeneous firms model. Uncertainty about foreign income, trade protection and their interaction dampens export investment. This can be mitigated by trade agreements, which are particularly valuable in periods of...

We introduce limited liability in a model with a continuum of ex ante identical agents who face aggregate and idiosyncratic income risk. These agents can trade a complete menu of contingent claims, but they cannot commit and shares in a Lucas tree serve as collateral to back up their...

This paper discusses the extent to which derivatives pose threats to firms and to the economy. After reviewing the derivatives markets and putting in perspective the various measures of the size of these markets, the paper shows who uses derivatives and why. The difficulties firms face in...

We show that Tobin's q, as proxied by the ratio of the firm's market value to its book value, increases with the firm's systematic equity risk and falls with the firm's unsystematic equity risk. Further, an increase in the firm's total equity risk is associated with a fall in q. The negative...

We estimate the uncertainty effects of preferential trade disagreements. Increases in the probability of Britain's exit from the European Union (Brexit) reduce bilateral export values and trade participation. These effects are increasing in trade policy risk across products and asymmetric for UK...

This paper extends the methodology developed in Chien, Cole and Lustig (2011 & 2012) (hereafter CCL2011 and CCL2012, respectively) to analyze and compute the equilibria of economies with heterogeneous agents who have different asset trading technologies and are subject to both aggregate and...

From 1963 through 2015, idiosyncratic risk (IR) is high when market risk (MR) is high. We show that the positive relation between IR and MR is highly stable through time and is robust across exchanges, firm size, liquidity, and market-to-book groupings. Though stock liquidity affects the...