Betas are used in many applications ranging from asset pricing tests, cost of capital estimation, investment management and risk management. Beta needs to be estimated, and to reduce estimation error, shrinkage to its cross-sectional average value of one is often applied. Since beta is the...

This study analyzes various measures of the downside beta of stocks. Downside beta is sometimes defined and estimated in different ways. Theoretically, an approach based on the mean-semi-variance equilibrium model appears superior. Two known alternative approaches are not consistent with the...

I argue that delegated portfolio management can cause the equilibrium relation between CAPM beta and expected stock returns to become flat, instead of linearly positive, and propose an alternative to the widely used Fama and French (1993) 3-factor asset pricing model which incorporates this...

I argue that delegated portfolio management can cause the equilibrium relation between CAPM beta and expected stock returns to become flat, instead of linearly positive, and propose an alternative to the widely used Fama and French (1993) 3-factor asset pricing model which incorporates this...

The added value of smart beta indices is known to be explained by exposures to established factor premiums, but does that make these indices suitable for implementing a factor investing strategy? This paper finds that the amount of factor exposure provided by popular smart beta strategies...