We derive asymptotic standard errors of risk premia estimates based on the popular two-pass cross-sectional regression methodology developed by Black, Jensen, and Scholes (1972) and Fama and MacBeth (1973) when univariate betas are used as regressors. Our standard errors are robust to model...

We provide a new upper bound on the R-squared of a predictive regression of stock returns on predictable variables, tightening substantially Ross's (2005) bound. An empirical application illustrates that while Ross's bound is not binding, our bound does.