Technological diversification and resilience to systematic risk: Evidence from listed firms in China

This paper investigates whether a firm with diversified technological bases is more resilient to systematic downside risk. By investigating Chinese listed manufacturing firms for 2015-2023, we find that diversified technological bases significantly reduce the left-tail correlation between its stock return and the market return, suggesting that the more diversified technology bases, the less likely systematic downside risk would negatively influence its stock price. Compared to state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or firms in traditional industries, the technological diversification effect is more pronounced among non-SOEs or firms in high-tech industries. Further analysis suggests that by improving production efficiency and enhancing market power, a firm with a diversified technological base transmits a capacity signal to investors and thus enhances its resilience to systematic risk. By exploiting the 2018 U.S. tariff increase as a negative exogenous shock, we find that exporting firms in targeted industries, relative to those in nontargeted industries, had greater resilience to systematic risk after the shock when their technological bases were more diversified. Overall, this paper confirms the signaling role of technological diversification in the financial market and advances the understanding of firms' ability to resist systematic downside risk.