On the redundancy of the value factor

This dissertation consists of three independent papers. The third paper proposes an explanation for the empirically documented relation between the value factor and the investment factor of the Fama-French five-factor model: Investors observing that a firm decreases its investment perceive the firm as riskier, and therefore adjust their valuations of the firm downwards. Consequently, the firm's book-to-market ratio increases. In support of this conjecture, we find considerable overlap between the factor-mimicking portfolios of the value and the investment factor. We show that this overlap is driven by stocks that experience an increase in their book-to-market ratios due to a decrease in their market values. Moreover, our results show that these value stocks behave like low investment stocks and thus earn a premium. Together with actual low investment stocks, these stocks are primarily responsible for the value premium.