Shrinking the Size Effect

Moshe Levy*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Harry Markowitz laid the mean-variance foundation for the cornerstone capital asset pricing model (CAPM). One of the most significant and persistent empirical violations of the CAPM is the size, or small-firm, effect: the average returns of small firms are much too high relative to their betas. However, the CAPM risk-return relationship should hold for the expected parameters, and statistical theory tells us that the sample parameters are not the best estimates of the ex-ante parameters. When Bayesian shrinkage is employed to the sample average returns and betas, the size effect almost completely disappears.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)240-249
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Portfolio Management
Volume50
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 2024

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