IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/empfin/v66y2022icp121-136.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is idiosyncratic risk priced? The international evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Brockman, Paul
  • Guo, Tao
  • Vivero, Maria Gabriela
  • Yu, Wayne

Abstract

We find a positive and significant relation between forecasted idiosyncratic volatility and returns in a large international database covering 57 countries with over three million firm–month observations from July 1995 to June 2016. Our empirical results reveal substantial cross-country variation in the magnitude of the idiosyncratic risk premiums. Consistent with classic asset pricing theory (e.g., Markowitz (1959); Merton (1987)), we find that idiosyncratic risk premiums are positively associated with investor impediments to portfolio diversification. Specifically, the significant relation between idiosyncratic risk and returns is attenuated by stock market development, broader access to high quality information, and lower transaction costs

Suggested Citation

  • Brockman, Paul & Guo, Tao & Vivero, Maria Gabriela & Yu, Wayne, 2022. "Is idiosyncratic risk priced? The international evidence," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 121-136.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:66:y:2022:i:c:p:121-136
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jempfin.2022.01.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927539822000123
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jempfin.2022.01.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Valerie R. Bencivenga & Bruce D. Smith, 1991. "Financial Intermediation and Endogenous Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 195-209.
    2. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    3. Robert M. Bushman & Joseph D. Piotroski & Abbie J. Smith, 2004. "What Determines Corporate Transparency?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 207-252, May.
    4. Doina C. Chichernea & Michael F. Ferguson & Haimanot Kassa, 2015. "Idiosyncratic Risk, Investor Base, and Returns," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 44(2), pages 267-293, June.
    5. Greenwood, Jeremy & Jovanovic, Boyan, 1990. "Financial Development, Growth, and the Distribution of Income," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 1076-1107, October.
    6. Nelson, Daniel B, 1991. "Conditional Heteroskedasticity in Asset Returns: A New Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(2), pages 347-370, March.
    7. Chordia, Tarun & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar & Anshuman, V. Ravi, 2001. "Trading activity and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 3-32, January.
    8. Bin Liu & Amalia Di Iorio & Ashton De Silva, 2016. "Equity fund performance," Studies in Economics and Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 33(3), pages 359-376, August.
    9. Levine, Ross & Zervos, Sara, 1998. "Stock Markets, Banks, and Economic Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 537-558, June.
    10. Khovansky, Serguey & Zhylyevskyy, Oleksandr, 2013. "Impact of idiosyncratic volatility on stock returns: A cross-sectional study," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 3064-3075.
    11. La Porta, Rafael & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "Legal Determinants of External Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1131-1150, July.
    12. Geert Bekaert & Campbell R. Harvey & Christian Lundblad, 2007. "Liquidity and Expected Returns: Lessons from Emerging Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(6), pages 1783-1831, November.
    13. Ang, Andrew & Hodrick, Robert J. & Xing, Yuhang & Zhang, Xiaoyan, 2009. "High idiosyncratic volatility and low returns: International and further U.S. evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 1-23, January.
    14. Jennifer Conrad & Robert F. Dittmar & Eric Ghysels, 2013. "Ex Ante Skewness and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(1), pages 85-124, February.
    15. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    16. Boyd, John H. & Prescott, Edward C., 1986. "Financial intermediary-coalitions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 211-232, April.
    17. Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Laura Veldkamp, 2010. "Information Acquisition and Under-Diversification," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 779-805.
    18. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    19. Aswath Damodaran, 1999. "Estimating Risk Parameters," New York University, Leonard N. Stern School Finance Department Working Paper Seires 99-019, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business-.
    20. Fink, Jason & Fink, Kristin E. & Grullon, Gustavo & Weston, James P., 2010. "What Drove the Increase in Idiosyncratic Volatility during the Internet Boom?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(5), pages 1253-1278, October.
    21. Ole E. Barndorff‐Nielsen & Neil Shephard, 2002. "Econometric analysis of realized volatility and its use in estimating stochastic volatility models," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 64(2), pages 253-280, May.
    22. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 2012. "Size, value, and momentum in international stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 457-472.
    23. Alexander, Gordon J. & Chervany, Norman L., 1980. "On the Estimation and Stability of Beta," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 123-137, March.
    24. Douglas W. Diamond, 1984. "Financial Intermediation and Delegated Monitoring," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(3), pages 393-414.
    25. Mu-Shun Wang, 2013. "Idiosyncratic Volatility and the Expected Stock Returns for Exploring the Relationship with Panel Threshold Regression," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer;Japanese Association of Financial Economics and Engineering, vol. 20(2), pages 113-129, May.
    26. Djankov, Simeon & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2008. "The law and economics of self-dealing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 430-465, June.
    27. Williamson, Stephen D., 1986. "Costly monitoring, financial intermediation, and equilibrium credit rationing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 159-179, September.
    28. Lesmond, David A & Ogden, Joseph P & Trzcinka, Charles A, 1999. "A New Estimate of Transaction Costs," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(5), pages 1113-1141.
    29. Paul J. Irvine & Jeffrey Pontiff, 2009. "Idiosyncratic Return Volatility, Cash Flows, and Product Market Competition," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1149-1177, March.
    30. Engle, Robert F & Ng, Victor K, 1993. "Measuring and Testing the Impact of News on Volatility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1749-1778, December.
    31. Merton, Robert C, 1987. "A Simple Model of Capital Market Equilibrium with Incomplete Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 483-510, July.
    32. Bollerslev, Tim, 1986. "Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 307-327, April.
    33. Abdoh, Hussein & Varela, Oscar, 2017. "Product market competition, idiosyncratic and systematic volatility," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 500-513.
    34. Wei Huang & Qianqiu Liu & S. Ghon Rhee & Liang Zhang, 2010. "Return Reversals, Idiosyncratic Risk, and Expected Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(1), pages 147-168, January.
    35. Liu, Shengnan & Kong, Ao & Gu, Rongbao & Guo, Wenjing, 2019. "Does idiosyncratic volatility matter? — Evidence from Chinese stock market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 516(C), pages 393-401.
    36. Jason D. Fink & Kristin E. Fink & Hui He, 2012. "Expected Idiosyncratic Volatility Measures and Expected Returns," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 41(3), pages 519-553, September.
    37. Amihud, Yakov, 2002. "Illiquidity and stock returns: cross-section and time-series effects," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 31-56, January.
    38. Andrew Ang & Robert J. Hodrick & Yuhang Xing & Xiaoyan Zhang, 2006. "The Cross‐Section of Volatility and Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(1), pages 259-299, February.
    39. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    40. Guo, Hui & Kassa, Haimanot & Ferguson, Michael F., 2014. "On the Relation between EGARCH Idiosyncratic Volatility and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(1), pages 271-296, February.
    41. Levine, Ross, 1991. "Stock Markets, Growth, and Tax Policy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1445-1465, September.
    42. Ricardo T. Fernholz & Christoffer Koch, 2017. "Big Banks, Idiosyncratic Volatility, and Systemic Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 603-607, May.
    43. Cao, Jie & Han, Bing, 2016. "Idiosyncratic risk, costly arbitrage, and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-15.
    44. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    45. Bergbrant, Mikael & Kassa, Haimanot, 2021. "Is idiosyncratic volatility related to returns? Evidence from a subset of firms with quality idiosyncratic volatility estimates," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    46. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    47. Bollerslev, Tim, 1987. "A Conditionally Heteroskedastic Time Series Model for Speculative Prices and Rates of Return," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(3), pages 542-547, August.
    48. Fu, Fangjian, 2009. "Idiosyncratic risk and the cross-section of expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 24-37, January.
    49. Ole E. Barndorff‐Nielsen & Neil Shephard, 2001. "Non‐Gaussian Ornstein–Uhlenbeck‐based models and some of their uses in financial economics," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 63(2), pages 167-241.
    50. Campbell R. Harvey & Akhtar Siddique, 2000. "Conditional Skewness in Asset Pricing Tests," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1263-1295, June.
    51. Kraus, Alan & Litzenberger, Robert H, 1976. "Skewness Preference and the Valuation of Risk Assets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(4), pages 1085-1100, September.
    52. Paul J. Irvine & Jeffrey Pontiff, 2009. "Idiosyncratic Return Volatility, Cash Flows, and Product Market Competition," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1149-1177.
    53. Levy, Haim, 1978. "Equilibrium in an Imperfect Market: A Constraint on the Number of Securities in the Portfolio," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(4), pages 643-658, September.
    54. Healy, Paul M. & Palepu, Krishna G., 2001. "Information asymmetry, corporate disclosure, and the capital markets: A review of the empirical disclosure literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 405-440, September.
    55. Zhiyao Chen & Ilya A Strebulaev, 2019. "Macroeconomic Risk and Idiosyncratic Risk-taking," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(3), pages 1148-1187.
    56. Engle, Robert F, 1982. "Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity with Estimates of the Variance of United Kingdom Inflation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 987-1007, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhu, Zhaobo & Ding, Wenjie & Jin, Yi & Shen, Dehua, 2023. "Dissecting the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle: A fundamental analysis approach," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    2. Chuxuan Xiao & Winifred Huang & David P. Newton, 2024. "Predicting expected idiosyncratic volatility: Empirical evidence from ARFIMA, HAR, and EGARCH models," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 979-1006, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bergbrant, Mikael & Kassa, Haimanot, 2021. "Is idiosyncratic volatility related to returns? Evidence from a subset of firms with quality idiosyncratic volatility estimates," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    2. Stanislav Bozhkov & Habin Lee & Uthayasankar Sivarajah & Stella Despoudi & Monomita Nandy, 2020. "Idiosyncratic risk and the cross-section of stock returns: the role of mean-reverting idiosyncratic volatility," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 294(1), pages 419-452, November.
    3. Chuxuan Xiao & Winifred Huang & David P. Newton, 2024. "Predicting expected idiosyncratic volatility: Empirical evidence from ARFIMA, HAR, and EGARCH models," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 979-1006, October.
    4. Ayadi, Mohamed A. & Cao, Xu & Lazrak, Skander & Wang, Yan, 2019. "Do idiosyncratic skewness and kurtosis really matter?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    5. Fu, Fangjian, 2009. "Idiosyncratic risk and the cross-section of expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 24-37, January.
    6. Guo, Hui & Qiu, Buhui, 2014. "Options-implied variance and future stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 93-113.
    7. Tariq Aziz & Valeed Ahmad Ansari, 2017. "Idiosyncratic volatility and stock returns: Indian evidence," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1420998-142, January.
    8. Gregory Connor & Lisa R. Goldberg & Robert A. Korajczyk, 2010. "Portfolio Risk Analysis," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9224.
    9. Zhong, Angel, 2018. "Idiosyncratic volatility in the Australian equity market," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 105-125.
    10. Adam Zaremba & Jacob Koby Shemer, 2018. "Price-Based Investment Strategies," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-319-91530-2, December.
    11. Yunting Liu, 2022. "The Short-Run and Long-Run Components of Idiosyncratic Volatility and Stock Returns," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 1573-1589, February.
    12. Nartea, Gilbert V. & Wu, Ji & Liu, Zhentao, 2013. "Does idiosyncratic volatility matter in emerging markets? Evidence from China," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 137-160.
    13. Aboulamer, Anas & Kryzanowski, Lawrence, 2016. "Are idiosyncratic volatility and MAX priced in the Canadian market?," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 20-36.
    14. Cakici, Nusret & Zaremba, Adam, 2021. "Liquidity and the cross-section of international stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    15. Amit Goyal, 2012. "Empirical cross-sectional asset pricing: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 26(1), pages 3-38, March.
    16. Bali, Turan G. & Cakici, Nusret & Whitelaw, Robert F., 2011. "Maxing out: Stocks as lotteries and the cross-section of expected returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 427-446, February.
    17. Bai, Jennie & Bali, Turan G. & Wen, Quan, 2021. "Is there a risk-return tradeoff in the corporate bond market? Time-series and cross-sectional evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(3), pages 1017-1037.
    18. Esther Eiling, 2013. "Industry-Specific Human Capital, Idiosyncratic Risk, and the Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(1), pages 43-84, February.
    19. Nartea, Gilbert V. & Wu, Ji, 2013. "Is there a volatility effect in the Hong Kong stock market?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 119-135.
    20. Son, Nguyen Truong & Nguyen, Nhat Minh, 2019. "Prospect theory value and idiosyncratic volatility: Evidence from the Korean stock market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 113-122.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:empfin:v:66:y:2022:i:c:p:121-136. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jempfin .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.