Home | Events Archive | Cross-sectional Asset Pricing with Unsystematic Risk
Seminar

Cross-sectional Asset Pricing with Unsystematic Risk

  • Series
    Erasmus Finance Seminars
  • Speaker(s)
    Irina Zviadadze (HEC Paris, France)
  • Field
    Finance, Accounting and Finance
  • Location
    Erasmus University Rotterdam, T03-35
    Rotterdam
  • Date and time

    April 09, 2024
    11:45 - 13:00

Abstract
Our objective is to price the cross-section of asset returns. In contrast to existing models that allow expected excess returns to reflect compensation only for systematic risk, we derive a stochastic discount factor (SDF) implied by the Arbitrage Pricing Theory and consistent with the equilibrium model of Merton (1987), in which there is compensation also for unsystematic risk. Empirically, we find that more than seventy percent of this SDF’s variation is explained by unsystematic risk. Our SDF dominates traditional factor models and the state-of-the-art models of latent systematic risk in pricing the cross-section of asset returns in and out of sample.