Empirical Examination of the Robustness of Arbitrage Factors

After thirty years of vigorous research, there is still little agreement in the field of asset pricing theory. Shanken and Smith (1996) sum up the vast amount of empirical research on asset pricing models by saying, "Although we have learned much about the cross sectional and time series properties of returns and have developed sophisticated statistical methods to increase the power of the tests, numerous unanswered questions remain." Two of the most fundamental, yet unanswered, questions are: How many factors are there? and What are those factors? The two primary equilibrium, expected return models are the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), developed almost simultaneously by Sharpe (1964), Lintner (1965), and Mossin (1966), and the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT), introduced by Ross (1976, 1977). The CAPM is a one factor model that states that the equilibrium rate of return on any asset is a linear function of the asset's covariance with the market portfolio. The APT, on the other hand, is a multifactor model.Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson AFB OH is the author of 'Empirical Examination of the Robustness of Arbitrage Factors', published 1997 under ISBN 9781423570578 and ISBN 142357057X.