This paper presents a simple forecasting technique for variance covariance matrices. It relies significantly on the contribution of Chiriac and Voev (2010) who propose to forecast elements of the Cholesky decomposition which recombine to form a positive definite forecast for the variance...

We are grateful to Denise Osborn and Eric Renault for valuable comments and to Nikolaos Sakkas for assistance with the computations. The paper has also benefited from the comments of a co-editor and three anonymous referees. An earlier version of this paper was circulated under the title...

This paper assesses quantitatively the impact of legal institutions on entrepreneurial firm dynamics. Owners choose firm size, financial structure and default to manage risk. We find: (i) Less risk averse entrepreneurs run bigger firms and it is optimal for them to incorporate, while more risk...