Industry Concentration and the Cross-section of Stock Returns: Evidence from the UK

Nawar, Hashem (2010): Industry Concentration and the Cross-section of Stock Returns: Evidence from the UK.

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the relationship between industry concentration and the cross-section of stock returns in the London Stock Exchange between 1985 and 2010. Using Multifactor asset pricing theory, I test whether industry concentration is a new asset pricing factor in addition to conventional risk factors such as beta, firm size, book-to-market ratio, momentum, and leverage. I find that industry concentration is negatively related to the expected stock returns in all Fama and MacBeth cross-sectional regressions. In addition, the negative relationship between industry concentration and expected stock returns remain significantly negative after beta, size, book-to-market, momentum, and leverage are included, while beta is never significant. The results are robust to firm- and industry-level regressions and the formation of firms into 100 size-beta portfolios. The findings indicate that competitive industries earn, on average, higher risk-adjusted returns compared to concentrated industries which is consistent with Schumpeter’s concept of creative destruction.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Industry concentration, Stock returns, Multifactor asset pricing theory, Competitive industries, Concentrated industries, Creative destruction, London Stock Exchange
• Subjects: G - Financial Economics > G1 - General Financial Markets; G - Financial Economics > G1 - General Financial Markets > G12 - Asset Pricing ; Trading Volume ; Bond Interest Rates

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