Many tests of asset-pricing models address only the pricing predictions, but these pricing predictions rest on portfolio choice predictions that seem obviously wrong. This paper suggests a new approach to asset pricing and portfolio choices based on unobserved heterogeneity. This approach yields the standard pricing conclusions of classical models but is consistent with very different portfolio...

We show that the external habit-formation model economy of Campbell and Cochrane ~1999! can explain why the Capital Asset Pricing Model ~CAPM! and its extensions are better approximate asset pricing models than is the standard consumptionbased model. The model economy produces time-varying expected returns, tracked by the dividend–price ratio. Portfolio-based models capture some of this variati...

We model conditional market beta and alpha as flexible functions of state variables identified via a formal variable selection procedure. In the post-1963 sample, beta of the value premium comoves strongly with unemployment, inflation, and price-earnings ratio in a countercyclical manner. We also uncover a novel nonlinear dependence of alpha on business conditions: It falls sharply and becomes ...

2 Basic Theory 4 2.1 Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.2 Arbitrage, State Prices, and Martingales . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.3 Individual Agent Optimality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.4 Habit and Recursive Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2.5 Equilibrium and Pareto Optimality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.6 Equilibrium ...

This paper evaluates the specification errors of several empirical asset pricing models that have been developed as potential improvements on the CAPM. We use the methodology of Hansen and Jagannathan (J. Finance 51 (1997) 3), and the test assets are the 25 Fama-French (J. Financial Econom. 52 (1997) 557) equity portfolios sorted on size and book-to-market ratio, and the Treasury bill. We allow...

In this paper we derive the finite-sample distribution of the estimated weights of the tangency portfolio when both the population and the sample covariance matrices are singular. These results are used in the derivation of a statistical test on the weights of the tangency portfolio where the distribution of the test statistic is obtained under both the null and the alternative hypotheses. More...

We consider a simple CAPM with heterogenous expectations on assets’ mean returns and homogenous expectations on the covariance of returns. In this model alpha-opportunities naturally arise in a financial market equilibrium. We show that that the hunt for alpha-opportunities is a zero-sum game and that alpha-opportunities erode with the assets under management. Moreover, it is shown that a posit...

This paper explores the ability of theoretically-based asset pricing models such as the CAPM and the consumption CAPM referred to jointly as the (C)CAPM to explain the cross-section of average stock returns. Unlike many previous empirical tests of the (C)CAPM, we specify the pricing kernel as a conditional linear factor model, as would be expected if risk premia vary over time. Central to our a...

In this paper we propose a new approach to estimating systematic risk (the beta of an asset). The proposed method is based on a wavelet multiscaling approach that decomposes a given time series on a scale-by-scale basis. The empirical results from different economies show that the relationship between the return of a portfolio and its beta becomes stronger as the wavelet scale increases. Theref...

We investigate the risk-return relation in international stock markets using realized variance constructed from MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International) daily stock price indices. In contrast with the capital asset pricing model, realized variance by itself provides negligible information about future excess stock market returns; however, we uncover a positive and significant risk-return tra...