This paper presents empirical evidence that fluctuations in idiosyncratic risk are largely driven by the age characteristics of the firms composing the market. Consistent with previous studies, we find that the age of the typical firm at its IPO date has fallen dramatically from nearly 40 years...

This paper presents empirical evidence that the recent rise in idiosyncratic risk is driven by the increasing propensity of firms to issue public equity at an earlier stage in their life cycle. We find that the age of the typical firm at its IPO date has fallen dramatically from nearly 40 years...

Aggregate idiosyncratic volatility spiked nearly fivefold during the Internet boom of the late 1990s, dwarfing in magnitude a moderately increasing trend. While some researchers argue that this rise in idiosyncratic risk was the result of changes in the characteristics of public firms, others...