CAPM, Components of Beta and the Cross Section of Expected

Le CIRANO collabore avec de nombreux centres et chaires de recherche universitaires dont on peut consulter la liste sur son site web. Les cahiers de la série scientifique (CS) visent à rendre accessibles des résultats de recherche effectuée au CIRANO afin de susciter échanges et commentaires. Ces cahiers sont écrits dans le style des publications scientifiques. Les idées et les opinions émises sont sous l'unique responsabilité des auteurs et ne représentent pas nécessairement les positions du CIRANO ou de ses partenaires. This paper presents research carried out at CIRANO and aims at encouraging discussion and comment. The observations and viewpoints expressed are the sole responsibility of the authors. They do not necessarily represent positions of CIRANO or its partners. Résumé / Abstract This paper demonstrates that a conditional version of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) explains the cross section of expected returns, just as well as the three factor model of Fama and French. This is achieved by measuring beta (systematic risk) with short-, medium-and long-run components. The short-run component of beta is computed from daily returns over the prior year. While the medium-run beta component is from daily returns over the prior 5 years and the long-run component from monthly returns over the prior 10 years. More immediate changes in risk such as changes in portfolio characteristics are captured in the short-run beta component, whereas, more slowly changing risk due to the business cycle is captured in the medium-and long-run beta components.