Researchers commonly assume that business groups, a ubiquitous organizational form in emerging markets, permit affiliated firms to share risk by smoothing income flows and by reallocating money from one affiliate to another in times of distress. This view has received support in the literature...

We use a new database from fifteen emerging markets as well as from prewar and modern Japan to examine the popular view that business groups - ubiquitous in most emerging markets - facilitate risk sharing by smoothing the performance of affiliated firms. We replicate existing results on risk...

Diversified business (or corporate) groups, consisting of legally independent firms operating in multiple markets, are ubiquitous in emerging markets and even in some developed economies. The study of groups, a hybrid organizational form between firm and market, is of relevance to industrial...