The impact of idiosyncratic risk on corporate financialisation——Evidence from China

Using the quarterly data of non-financial companies listed on China's A-share market from 2007 to 2019, this paper examines the relationship between the idiosyncratic risk formed based on the secondary market exchanges and the corporate financialization from the perspective of a market feedback effect. The empirical results show that idiosyncratic risk has a significant impact on the allocation of financial assets of non-financial enterprises, which is one of the motivating factors for the financialization of non-financial enterprises. Compared with SOEs, large enterprises and non-manufacturing enterprises; private enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises, and manufacturing enterprises will allocate more financial assets when idiosyncratic risk increases. Mechanism analysis shows that managers risk aversion and financing constraints increase the impact of idiosyncratic risk on financial asset allocation while strengthening the external monitoring mechanism of institutional investors has the opposite effect. The research findings of this paper help to understand whether secondary financial markets affect the financial investment decisions of real firms in transition economies, and also have implications for how to govern the "transition from real to virtual" of real enterprises in China.