The q-factor model shows strong explanatory power and largely summarizes the cross section of average stock returns. In particular, the q-factor model fully subsumes the Fama-French (2018) 6-factor model in head-to-head factor spanning tests. The q-factor model is an empirical implementation of...

I construct a neoclassical, Q-theoretical foundation for time-varying expected returns in connection with corporate policies and events. Under certain conditions, stock return equals investment return, which is directly tied with firm characteristics. This single equation is shown analytically...

A new class of Capital Asset Pricing Models (CAPM) arises from the first principle of real investment for individual firms. Conceptually as "causal"' as the consumption CAPM, yet empirically more tractable, the investment CAPM emerges as a leading asset pricing paradigm. Firms do a good job in...

The investment theory, in which the expected return varies cross-sectionally with investment, expected profitability, and expected growth, is a good start to understanding Graham and Dodd's (1934) Security Analysis. Empirically, the q^5 model goes a long way toward explaining prominent equity...

Yes, most likely. The firm-level evidence on costly reversibility is even stronger than the prior evidence at the plant level. The firm-level investment rate distribution is highly skewed to the right, with a small fraction of negative investments, 5.79%, a tiny fraction of inactive investments,...

Labor market frictions are crucial for the equity premium in production economies. A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with recursive utility, search frictions, and capital accumulation yields a high equity premium of 4.26% per annum, a stock market volatility of 11.8%, and a low...

In a multiperiod investment framework, firms with high expected growth earn higher expected returns than firms with low expected growth, holding investment and expected profitability constant. This paper forms cross-sectional growth forecasts, and constructs an expected growth factor that yields...

Two innovations in the structural investment model go a long way in explaining value and momentum jointly. Firm-level investment returns are constructed from firm-level accounting variables, and are then aggregated to the portfolio level to match with portfolio-level stock returns. In addition,...

The neoclassical investment model matches cross-sectional asset prices both in first differences and in levels. With ten book-to-market deciles as the testing portfolios, the investment model largely matches the Tobin's Q spread and the average return spread across the extreme deciles. The...

Is the value premium predictable? We study time-variations of the expected value premium using a two-state Markov switching model. We find that when conditional volatilities are high, the expected excess returns of value stocks are more sensitive to aggregate economic conditions than the...