In this paper, we scrutinize the cross-sectional relation between idiosyncratic volatility and stock returns. As a novelty, the idiosyncratic volatility is obtained by conditioning upon macro-finance factors as well as upon traditional asset pricing factors. The macro-finance factors are...

We find strong empirical support for the risk-shifting mechanism to account for the puzzling negative relation between idiosyncratic volatility and future stock returns. First, equity holders take on investments with high idiosyncratic risk when their firms are in distress and receive less...

This paper revisits some recently found evidence in the literature on the cross-section of stock returns for a carefully constructed dataset of euro area stocks. First, we confirm recent results for US data and find evidence of a negative cross-sectional relation between extreme positive returns...