Capital Ideas is now Chicago Booth Review but unfortunately original articles are no longer available. If you click through you will be taken to the Internet Archive site to find an archived copy.
I love summary articles. They help make sense of the world and let us see the forest through the trees. Some of my favorites include the Harris and Raviv summary article on capital structure, Fama’s paper that responds to Behavioral Finance Theories, and Cliff Smith’s introduction to his book of readings in Corporate Finance. And now I have a favorite on the CAPM and other pricing models. While still officially a working paper, Fama and French give us an excellent recap of both current and past work in the field. My favorite line (and totally coincidentally the conclusion): “The CAPM, Like Markowitz’ (1952, 1959) portfolio model on which it is built, is nevertheless a theoretical tour de force. We continue to teach the CAPM […] but we also warn students that despite its seductive simplicity, the CAPM’s empirical problems probably invalidate its use in applications.” WOW! Well said. [FinanceProfessor.com Annotation]
Authors: Eugene F. Fama, Kenneth R. French
Subject: Finance
Industry: Finance / Banking
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