Despite the debate on the pricing of idiosyncratic risk, it is generally believed that the pricing effect is likely to exist among small stocks due to lack of diversification and information asymmetry predicted by Merton (1987). However, given the size of Asset Under Management, most...

This paper reconciles the conflicting evidence on the cross-sectional pricing of idiosyncratic risk. Some studies find a negative relation, while others document a positive relation between idiosyncratic volatilities and future returns on individual stocks. In contrast to the common practice of...

In contrast to the current literature, we provide new evidence supporting a positive relation between idiosyncratic risk and the expected future market return. Since a large part of the idiosyncratic risk can be diversified away easily, the conventional aggregate idiosyncratic risk measures can...

The dramatic rise and fall of the Japanese equity market provides a unique opportunity to examine market-and firm-specific risks over different market conditions. The price behavior of Japanese equities in the 1990s is found to resemble that of U.S. equities during the Great Depression. Both...

This paper uses a disaggregated approach to study the volatility of common stocks at the market, industry, and firm levels. Over the period 1962-97 there has been a noticeable increase in firm-level volatility relative to market volatility. Accordingly correlations among individual stocks and...