Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports Arbitrage Pricing Theory Gur Huberman Zhenyu Wang Staff Report no. 216 August 2005 This paper presents preliminary findings and is being distributed to economists and other interested readers solely to stimulate discussion and elicit comments. The views expressed in the paper are those of the authors and are not necessarily reflective of views at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the authors. Arbitrage Pricing Theory Gur Huberman and Zhenyu Wang Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports, no. 216 August 2005 JEL classification: G12 Abstract Focusing on capital asset returns governed by a factor structure, the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) is a one-period model, in which preclusion of arbitrage over static portfolios of these assets leads to a linear relation between the expected return and its covariance with the factors. The APT, however, does not preclude arbitrage over dynamic portfolios. Consequently, applying the model to evaluate managed portfolios is contradictory to the no-arbitrage spirit of the model. An empirical test of the APT entails a procedure to identify features of the underlying factor structure rather than merely a collection of mean-variance efficient factor portfolios that satisfies the linear relation. Key words: arbitrage, asset pricing model, factor model Huberman: Columbia University Graduate School of Business (e-mail:
[email protected]). Wang: Federal Reserve Bank of New York and University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business (e-mail:
[email protected]). This review of the arbitrage pricing theory was written for the forthcoming second edition of The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, edited by Lawrence Blume and Steven Durlauf (London: Palgrave Macmillan).