This paper makes indirect inference about the time variation in expected stock returns by comparing unconditional sample variances to estimates of expected conditional variances. The evidence reveals more predictability as more information is used, and there is no evidence that predictability...

Practitioners needing estimates of a firm's equity cost of capital have long relied on the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). Recent evidence casts renewed doubt on the validity of the CAPM and beta. However, there is not much evidence to gauge the importance of the rejections of the CAPM in a...