Too good to be true? Fallacies in evaluating risk factor models

This paper is concerned with statistical inference and model evaluation in possibly misspecified and unidentified linear asset pricing models estimated by maximum likelihood. Strikingly, when spurious factors (that is, factors that are uncorrelated with the returns on the test assets) are present, t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gospodinov, N. (Author), Kan, R. (Author), Robotti, C. (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier B.V. 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
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001 10.1016-j.jfineco.2018.10.012
008 220511s2019 CNT 000 0 und d
020 |a 0304405X (ISSN) 
245 1 0 |a Too good to be true? Fallacies in evaluating risk factor models 
260 0 |b Elsevier B.V.  |c 2019 
856 |z View Fulltext in Publisher  |u https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2018.10.012 
520 3 |a This paper is concerned with statistical inference and model evaluation in possibly misspecified and unidentified linear asset pricing models estimated by maximum likelihood. Strikingly, when spurious factors (that is, factors that are uncorrelated with the returns on the test assets) are present, the model exhibits perfect fit, as measured by the squared correlation between the model's fitted expected returns and the average realized returns. Furthermore, factors that are spurious are selected with high probability, and factors that are useful are driven out of the model. While ignoring potential misspecification and lack of identification can be very problematic for models with macroeconomic factors, empirical specifications with traded factors (e.g., Fama and French, 1993; Hou et al., 2015) do not suffer from the identification problems shown in this study. © 2018 Elsevier B.V. 
650 0 4 |a Asset pricing 
650 0 4 |a Goodness of fit 
650 0 4 |a Maximum likelihood 
650 0 4 |a Model misspecification 
650 0 4 |a Rank test 
650 0 4 |a Spurious risk factors 
650 0 4 |a Unidentified models 
700 1 |a Gospodinov, N.  |e author 
700 1 |a Kan, R.  |e author 
700 1 |a Robotti, C.  |e author 
773 |t Journal of Financial Economics