Journal of Finance Vol. 36 No. 1 1981
Investment Policy Implications of the Capital Asset Pricing Model
Abstract
The results of previous generalized Security Market Line (SML) tests of the Mean Variance (MV) and Linear Risk Tolerance (LRT) Capital Asset Pricing Models indicate that the models are empirically identical. A very widely accepted, but technically incorrect, explanation for the results is that with normal return distributions all expected utility maximizing riskaverse investors will pick MV portfolios. The paper shows that the generalized SML tests cannot distinguish between the MV model and a much wider variety of power utility LRT models than has previously been entertained. On the other hand, with approximately normal, or real world, return distributions the investment policies of the various models are shown to be different from each other, and from the MV policy in particular. To the extent the results of the portfolio selection calculations are robust, the results of, and implications drawn from, the tests of the macro pricing relations are not based on firm micro foundations.
- DOI
- 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1981.tb03539.x
- Volume
- 36
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 127-141
- Language
- en
- Sources
- openalex crossref