Three concepts: stochastic discount factors, multi-beta pricing and mean-variance efficiency, are at the core of modern empirical asset pricing. This chapter reviews these paradigms and the relations among them, concentrating on conditional asset-pricing models where lagged variables serve as...

Implied expected returns are the expected returns for which a supposedly mean-variance efficient portfolio is effectively efficient given a covariance matrix. We analyze the statistical properties of monthly implied expected return estimates and study their sensitivity to the choice of a...

We use firm characteristics to estimate the enduring momentum probabilities for past winners (losers) to continue to be future winners (losers). The enduring momentum probability is significantly related to stock return persistence and explains cross-sectional expected returns. In addition, it...

[Update: Within four weeks of the original publication of this research report, Risk Magazine reported in its 28th February 2012 issue story titled 'Goodbye VaR? Basel to Consider Other Risk Metrics': "A review of trading book capital rules, due to be launched in March by the Basel Committee on...

We investigate the time-scale relationships between the ten S&P sectors and the market through the use of wavelet analysis, a methodology that has widespread acceptance for investigating multi-horizon properties of time series. Our analysis of the data highlights that variation in the pattern of...

Graphical models have shown remarkable performance in uncovering the conditional dependence structure across a set of given variables. In this paper, we introduce two new graphical modelling approaches—called Gslope and Tslope—to the portfolio selection literature for directly estimating the...

Investors sometimes have strong convictions that a distinctive economic regime will prevail in the period ahead and therefore would like to form a portfolio that reflects the expected returns, standard deviations, and correlations of assets during such a regime. To do so, they typically isolate...

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, some risk management practitioners have advocated wider adoption of Bayesian inference to replace Value- at-Risk (VaR) models in order to minimize risk failures. Despite its limitations, the Bayesian methodology has significant advantages. Just...

In aftermath of the Financial Crisis, some risk management practitioners advocate wider adoption of Bayesian inference to replace Value-at-Risk (VaR) models for minimizing risk failures (Borison & Hamm, 2010). They claim reliance of Bayesian inference on subjective judgment, the key limitation...