Recently, the finance literature has included empirical analysis of consumption in asset pricing models based on the cross-equation restrictions implied by optimality of a representative agent's consumption and investment plan. These studies have required some specification of an aggregate utility function, and power (constant relative risk aversion) utility has been predominant. The present paper extends this body of research by including models with constant absolute, as well as constant relative, risk aversion.

Multibeta asset pricing models are examined using proxies for economic state variables in a framework which exploits time‐varying expected returns to estimate conditional betas. Examples include multiple consumption‐beta models and models where asset returns proxy for the state variables. When the state variables are not specified, the tests indicate two or three time‐varying expected risk premiums in the sample of quarterly asset returns. Conditional betas relative to consumption generate less striking evidence against the model than betas relative to asset returns, but both the consumption and the market variables fail to proxy for the state variables.

Regressions of security returns on treasury bill rates provide insight about the behavior of risk in rational asset pricing models. The information in one-month bill rates implies time variation in the conditional covariances of portfolios of stocks and fixed-income securities with benchmark pricing variables, over extended samples and within five-year subperiods. There is evidence of changes in conditional “betas” associated with interest rates. Consumption and stock market data are examined as proxies for marginal utility, in a general framework for asset pricing with time-varying conditional covariances.

Regressions of security returns on treasury bill rates provide insight about the behavior of risk in rational asset pricing models. The information in one‐month bill rates implies time variation in the conditional covariances of portfolios of stocks and fixed‐income securities with benchmark pricing variables, over extended samples and within five‐year subperiods. There is evidence of changes in conditional “betas” associated with interest rates. Consumption and stock market data are examined as proxies for marginal utility, in a general framework for asset pricing with time‐varying conditional covariances.

Wayne E. Ferson, The Empirical Implications of the Cox, Ingersoll, Ross Theory of the Term Structure of Interest Rates: Discussion, The Journal of Finance, Vol. 41, No. 3, Papers and Proceedings of the Forty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the America Finance Association, New York, New York, December 28-30, 1985 (Jul., 1986), pp. 630-632

We develop evidence on the finite sample properties of the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) in an asset pricing context. The models imply nonlinear, cross-equation restrictions on predictive regressions for security returns. We find that a two-stage GMM approach produces goodness-of-fit statistics that reject the restrictions too often. An iterated GMM approach has superior finite sample properties. The coefficient estimates are approximately unbiased in simpler models, but their asymptotic standard errors are understated. Simple adjustments for the standard errors are partially successful in correcting the bias. In more complex models the coefficients and their standard errors can be highly unreliable. The power of the tests to reject a single-premium model is higher against a two-premium, fixed-beta alternative than against a conditional Capital Asset Pricing Model with time-varying betas.

Habit persistence in preferences and durability of consumption goods both imply time-nonseparability in the derived utility for consumption expenditures. We study a simple model with both effects. Lagged consumption expenditures enter the Euler equation, where habit persistence implies that their coefficients are negative and durability implies positive coefficients. Estimating the sign of the coefficients addresses the question of which effect is dominant. Earlier empirical work on monthly data supports the durability of consumption expenditures. We find evidence in monthly, quarterly, and annual data that habit persistence dominates the effect of durability.