Many investors purchase stock but are reluctant or unable to sell short. Combining this arbitrage asymmetry with the arbitrage risk represented by idiosyncratic volatility (IVOL) explains the negative relation between IVOL and average return. The IVOL-return relation is negative among overpriced...

We construct optimal portfolios of mutual funds whose objectives include socially responsible investment (SRI). Comparing portfolios of these funds to those constructed from the broader fund universe reveals the cost of imposing the SRI constraint on investors seeking the highest Sharpe ratio....

The predictability of monthly stock returns is investigated from the perspective of a risk-averse investor who uses the data to update initially vague beliefs about the conditional distribution of returns. The optimal stocks-versus-cash allocation of the investor can depend importantly on the...

A plot of expected returns versus betas obeys virtually no relation to an inefficient index portfolio's mean-variance location. If the index portfolio is inefficient, then the coefficients and R- squared from an ordinary-least-squares regression of expected returns on betas can equal essentially...

A Bayesian approach is used to investigate a sample's information about a portfolio's degree of inefficiency. With standard diffuse priors, posterior distributions for measures of portfolio inefficiency can concentrate well away from values consistent with efficiency, even when the portfolio is...

A representative-agent model with time-varying moments of consumption growth is used to analyze implications about means and volatilities of asset returns as well as the predictability of asset returns for various investment horizons. A comparative-statics analysis using non-expected-utility...

We construct size and value factors in China. The size factor excludes the smallest 30% of firms, which are companies valued significantly as potential shells in reverse mergers that circumvent tight IPO constraints. The value factor is based on the earnings-price ratio, which subsumes the...

A pre-specified set of nine prominent U.S. equity return anomalies produce significant alphas in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the U.K. All of the anomalies are consistently significant across these five countries, whose developed stock markets afford the most extensive data. The anomalies...