Volume 29, Issue 2 pp. 2176-2192
RESEARCH ARTICLE

A risk–return trade-off or co-movement? Are food processing firms risk-averse?

Subhadip Mukherjee

Subhadip Mukherjee

Indian Institute of Management Shillong, Shillong, Meghalaya, India

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Soumyatanu Mukherjee

Soumyatanu Mukherjee

Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

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Mamata Parhi

Mamata Parhi

Roehampton Business School, Roehampton University, London, UK

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Kun Duan

Corresponding Author

Kun Duan

School of Economics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

Correspondence

Kun Duan, School of Economics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.

Email: [email protected]

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Ahmed Usman

Ahmed Usman

School of Economics, Finance and Accounting, Coventry University, Coventry, UK

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First published: 17 January 2023

Abstract

We build a two-moment decision-theoretic framework to study how firms in the food-processing industry negotiate between risk and return while relying on imported inputs for production at an intensive margin. Two possibilities emerge: either a co-movement or a trade-off in risk and return under various industry and economic conditions. Building on our theoretical setting, we design a testable empirical framework that considers a panel of 316 firms in the Indian food-processing industry between 1993 and 2009. We find strong evidence of a decrease in the absolute risk aversion preference, although the magnitude varies measurably across firms.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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