Does Unobservable Heterogeneity Matter for Portfolio-Based Asset Pricing Tests?

54 Pages Posted: 9 Apr 2020

See all articles by Markus Schmid

Markus Schmid

University of St. Gallen - Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance; University of St. Gallen - School of Finance; Swiss Finance Institute; European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Daniel Hoechle

FHNW School of Business - Institute for Finance; University of Basel - Department of Finance

Heinz Zimmermann

University of Basel - Faculty of Business and Economics

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: March 24, 2020

Abstract

We show that portfolio sorts, as widely used in empirical asset pricing, tend to misattribute cross-sectional return predictability to the firm characteristic underlying the sort. Such misattribution arises if the sorting variable correlates with a firm-specific effect capturing unobservable heterogeneity across firms. We propose a new, firm-level regression approach that can reproduce the results from standard portfolio sorts. Besides, our method handles multivariate firm characteristics and, if firm fixed effects are included, is robust to misattributing cross-sectional return predictability. Our empirical results confirm that portfolio sorts have limited power in detecting abnormal returns: Several characteristics-based factors lose their predictive power when we control for unobservable heterogeneity across firms.

Keywords: Portfolio sorts, cross-section of expected returns, tests of asset pricing models, random effects assumption

JEL Classification: C21, G14, D1

Suggested Citation

Schmid, Markus and Hoechle, Daniel and Zimmermann, Heinz, Does Unobservable Heterogeneity Matter for Portfolio-Based Asset Pricing Tests? (March 24, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3569485 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3569485

Markus Schmid (Contact Author)

University of St. Gallen - Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance ( email )

Unterer Graben 21
St. Gallen, 9000
Switzerland

University of St. Gallen - School of Finance ( email )

Unterer Graben 21
St.Gallen, CH-9000
Switzerland

Swiss Finance Institute

c/o University of St. Gallen
Dufourstrassse 50
St. Gallen, SG 9000
Switzerland

European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) ( email )

c/o the Royal Academies of Belgium
Rue Ducale 1 Hertogsstraat
1000 Brussels
Belgium

Daniel Hoechle

FHNW School of Business - Institute for Finance ( email )

Peter Merian-Strasse 86
Basel, CH-4002
Switzerland
+41 61 279 17 73 (Phone)

University of Basel - Department of Finance ( email )

Peter Merian-Weg 6
Basel, CH-4002
Switzerland

Heinz Zimmermann

University of Basel - Faculty of Business and Economics ( email )

Peter Merian Weg 6
Basel, 4002
Switzerland
+41 61 267 33 16 (Phone)
+41 61 267 08 98 (Fax)

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
164
Abstract Views
1,308
Rank
136,719
PlumX Metrics