We develop an estimator for latent factors in a large-dimensional panel of financial data that can explain expected excess returns. Statistical factor analysis based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) has problems identifying factors with a small variance that are important for asset pricing....

A single macroeconomic factor based on growth in the capital share of aggregate income exhibits significant explanatory power for expected returns across a range of equity characteristic portfolios and non-equity asset classes, with risk price estimates that are of the same sign and similar in...

This paper reviews the literature on idiosyncratic equity volatility since the publication of "Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk" in 2001. We respond to replication studies by Chiah, Gharghori, and Zhong and by Leippold and Svaton, and we...