RISK MANAGEMENT WITH FINANCIAL DERIVATIVES: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM ROMANIAN NON-FINANCIAL FIRMS

Financial risk management has rapidly evolved over the past two decades and has become an indispensable function in many institutions from different area of activities. In the last two decades, as the financial markets have become more and more mature, an increasing number of firms from emerging economies have chosen to use derivatives to hedge financial risks. As a result, risk management with financial derivatives has attracted much attention recently, becoming an important topic in the financial literature. However, we know little about the use of financial derivatives by firms from emerging economies and about the effect of these instruments on firms’ risk and value. The aim of the paper is to provide new insights into the use of financial derivatives for hedging purpose by non-financial firms from emerging markets. We analyzed risk management practices on a sample of 68 non-financial firms listed at Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) over a long time frame (2001 to 2011). We found that Romanian non-financial firms from our sample are exposed mainly to commodity price risk, currency risk, interest rate risk, and liquidity risk. More than half of the firms in our sample (55.88%) publish in their annual reports the goal of risk management process. Our results show that 10.29% of non-financial firms in our sample use financial derivatives to hedge their currency, interest rate or commodity price risks. We also found that the volatility caused by the global financial crisis determined many firms to use financial derivatives over the period 2007-2011. Nevertheless, the use of financial derivatives by Romanian non-financial firms is low relative to values registered for other emerging economies. The most important factors that hindered the use of financial derivatives have been the low liquidity of exchange derivatives markets, high hedging costs, and the lack of risk management expertise. The traditional approach of managing risks individually is still predominant among the non-financial Romanian firms