1999/02/01 by Raymond Kan, Chu Zhang · 357 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Mathematics · #Asset (computer security) #BETA (programming language) #Capital asset pricing model #Computer science #Corporate Finance and Governance #Credit Risk and Financial Regulations #Econometrics #Factor (programming language) #Factor analysis #Financial Markets and Investment Strategies #Mathematics #Regression #Series (stratigraphy) #Statistics
paper · doi:10.1111/0022-1082.00102
published in The Journal of Finance 54(1), 203-235 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 1999/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/08
In this paper we investigate the properties of the standard two‐pass methodology of testing beta pricing models with misspecified factors. In a setting where a factor is useless, defined as being independent of all the asset returns, we provide theoretical results and simulation evidence that the second‐pass cross‐sectional regression tends to find the beta risk of the useless factor priced more often than it should. More surprisingly, this misspecification bias exacerbates when the number of time series observations increases. Possible ways of detecting useless factors are also examined.