Proprietors are an important group of stockholders and non-diversifiable entrepreneurial risk could therefore help explain time-varying risk premia on the aggregate stock market. This paper suggests an entrepreneurial distress factor that is highly correlated with the aggregate...

Small businesses tend to be owned by wealthy households. Such entrepreneur households also own a large share of U.S. stock market wealth. Fluctuations in entrepreneurs' hunger for risk could therefore help explain time variation in the equity premium. The paper suggests an entrepreneurial...