Intangible assets have always been part of the economic landscape. In this study we examine the impact of intangibles, both internally developed and externally acquired, on our ability to identify differences in expected stock returns. Our research does not find compelling evidence that we...

Medical innovation enhances labor health, promotes human capital productivity, and influences asset prices. Using a manually collected dataset on drug approvals to identify medical innovation, I first confirm its direct impact on human capital -- a higher medical innovation shock predicts a...

Patent thickets, a phenomenon of fragmented ownership of overlapping patent rights, hamper firms' commercialization of patents and thus deliver asset pricing implications. We show that firms with deeper patent thickets are involved in more patent litigations, launch fewer new products, and...

This paper examines the relation between industry competition, credit spreads, and levered equity returns. I build a quantitative model where firms make investment, financing, and default decisions subject to aggregate and idiosyncratic risk. Firms operate in heterogeneous industries that differ...

We show that firms collect more than 70% of their cash flow in the second half of the fiscal year, and firms that collect more cash by year-end earn a 6% higher per annum risk premium and save more cash. We rationalize these facts in a quantitative investment-based asset pricing model. Immediate...

I explore an intricate interaction between a firm’s risk exposure, intangible capital accumulation, and physical capital accumulation by using a unified dynamic investment model of capital allocation. The model emphasizes both the importance of the marginal value of the intangible capital and...

The capital asset pricing model (CAPM) receives both criticism and widespread adoption by practitioners and academics as the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) equity component. This study introduces two new costs of equity measures to address CAPM criticisms and provide new perspective on...

We show, as simply as possible, the model's development, its implications and the assumptions on which it is based.The paper also contains 307 interesting comments and criticism from several professors, finance professionals and Ph.D. students about the CAPM: 234 basically agree in using the...

The CAPM is about expected return. If you find a formula for expected returns that works well in the real markets, would you publish it? Before or after becoming a billionaire?The CAPM is an absurd model because its assumptions and its predictions/conclusions have no basis in the real world. The...

The Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) has been the cornerstone of the asset allocation for over 40 years. In the past decade though, it led in a rather systematic way to bad investments decisions. One of MPT's main assumptions, investor risk aversion that translates into volatility aversion, biases...