William Paul Bell Queensland University Researcher

Why is mainstream economics not a social science but ideological mathematics?

Posts Tagged ‘Fama and French

Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) Contributing to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC)

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The Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) and Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) are a framework and standard financial tool, respectively. Together, they provide a worldview for financiers and determine their decision-making in the financial markets.

Fama (1965; 1970) introduces the EMH in three market efficiency levels: a strong level where all relevant information regarding a stock is fully reflected in its price; a semi-strong level where all publicly available information is reflected in its price; and a weak level where current prices reflex all past history of the prices.

Fama and French (2004, p. 25) note that CAPM of William Sharpe (1964) and John Lintner (1965) marks the birth of asset pricing theory (resulting in a Nobel Prize for Sharpe in 1990). Four decades later, the CAPM is still widely used in applications, such as estimating the cost of capital for firms and evaluating the performance of managed portfolios. It is the centerpiece of MBA investment courses. Indeed, it is often the only asset pricing model taught in these courses. Read the rest of this entry »