In this paper the cost of capital of the UK's newly privatized utilities is estimated using both the CAPM and the APT. It is found that the APT provides a better description of excess security returns than the CAPM. However, neither model can explain the crosssection of excess returns on the...

We test the robustness of the APT to two alternative estimation procedures: the Fama and MacBeth (1973) two-step methodology; and the one-step procedure due to Burmeister and McElroy (1988). We find that the APT is indeed sensitive to the chosen estimator and assumptions about the factor...

In this paper we test the robustness of the CAPM to two alternative estimation procedures: the Fama and MacBeth (1973) two-step methodology; and the one-step methodology due to Burmeister and McElroy (1988). For the UK stock market we find that we can clearly reject the CAPM when the two-step...

The relative predictability of returns and dividends is a central issue because it forms the paradigm to interpret asset price variation. A little studied question is how dividend smoothing, as a choice of corporate policy, affects predictability. We show that even if dividends are supposed to...