Learning about Beta: Time-Varying Factor Loadings, Expected Returns, and the Conditional CAPM

Museum & Visits Regional Economy Data & Statistics Careers Blog Press Center

About the New York Fed
- About the New York Fed
- What We Do
- Who We Are
  - Bank Leadership
- Communities We Serve
- Governance
- More About Us
- At the New York Fed, our mission is to make the U.S. economy stronger and the financial system more stable for all segments of society. We do this by executing monetary policy, providing financial services, supervising banks and conducting research and providing expertise on issues that impact the nation and communities we serve.
  
  The New York Innovation Center bridges the worlds of finance, technology, and innovation and generates insights into high-value central bank-related opportunities.
  
  Do you have a request for information and records? Learn how to submit it.
  
  Learn about the history of the New York Fed and central banking in the United States through articles, speeches, photos and video.
Markets & Policy Implementation

Economic Research
- Economic Research
- U.S. Economy
  - Consumer Expectations & Behavior
  - Growth & Inflation
  - Labor Market
  - Financial Stability
  - Banking
- REGIONAL ECONOMY
- RESEARCHERS
  - PUBLICATIONS
  - RESEARCH CENTERS
  - CALENDAR

Financial Institution Supervision
- Financial Institution Supervision
- Supervision & Regulation
  - Circulars
  - Regulations
- Reporting Forms & Instructions
  - Reporting Forms
  - Correspondence
- Bank Applications
- Consumer Protection
  - Community Reinvestment Act Exams
  - Frauds and Scams
- As part of our core mission, we supervise and regulate financial institutions in the Second District. Our primary objective is to maintain a safe and competitive U.S. and global banking system.
  
  The Governance & Culture Reform hub is designed to foster discussion about corporate governance and the reform of culture and behavior in the financial services industry.
  
  Need to file a report with the New York Fed? Here are all of the forms, instructions and other information related to regulatory and statistical reporting in one spot.
  
  The New York Fed works to protect consumers as well as provides information and resources on how to avoid and report specific scams.
Financial Services & Infrastructure
- Financial Services & Infrastructure
- Financial Services & Operations
- Financial Market Infrastructure & Reform
- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York works to promote sound and well-functioning financial systems and markets through its provision of industry and payment services, advancement of infrastructure reform in key markets and training and educational support to international institutions.
  
  The New York Innovation Center bridges the worlds of finance, technology, and innovation and generates insights into high-value central bank-related opportunities.
  
  The growing role of nonbank financial institutions, or NBFIs, in U.S. financial markets is a transformational trend with implications for monetary policy and financial stability.
  
  The New York Fed offers the Central Banking Seminar and several specialized courses for central bankers and financial supervisors.
Community Development
& Education

Staff Reports

Learning about Beta: Time-Varying Factor Loadings, Expected Returns, and the Conditional CAPM

Previous title: “Learning about Beta: A New Look at CAPM Tests”

September 2004 Number 193

Revised October 2008

JEL classification: G12, C11

Authors: Tobias Adrian and Francesco Franzoni

We complement the conditional capital asset pricing model (CAPM) by introducing unobservable long-run changes in risk factor loadings. In this environment, investors rationally “learn” the long-run level of factor loading by observing realized returns. As a direct consequence of this assumption, conditional betas are modeled using the Kalman filter. Because of its focus on low-frequency variation in betas, our approach circumvents recent criticisms of the conditional CAPM. When tested on portfolios sorted by size and book-to-market ratio, our learning-augmented conditional CAPM fails to be rejected.

Available only in PDF PDF

49 pages / 406 kb

For a published version of this report, see Tobias Adrian and Francesco Franzoni, "Learning about Beta: Time-Varying Factor Loadings, Expected Returns, and the Conditional CAPM," Journal of Empirical Finance 16, no. 4: 537-556.

tools

By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Statement. You can learn more about how we use cookies by reviewing our Privacy Statement.