Using idiosyncratic volatility as a proxy for arbitrage costs, the authors found that the highly publicized accrual and asset growth anomalies exist because of high barriers to arbitrage, occurring predominantly in the universe of stocks with higher arbitrage risks. Therefore, investors who seek...

We study the return predictive power of asset growth related measures in the MSCI World Universe, which includes all the developed markets. We find strong return predictive power of asset growth related measures in these markets. This power is particularly stronger for two-year total asset...