IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedawp/2007-04.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Model comparison using the Hansen-Jagannathan distance

Author

Listed:
  • Raymond Kan
  • Cesare Robotti

Abstract

Although it is of interest to empirical researchers to test whether or not a particular asset-pricing model is true, a more useful task is to determine how wrong a model is and to compare the performance of competing asset-pricing models. In this paper, we propose a new methodology to test whether two competing linear asset-pricing models have the same Hansen-Jagannathan distance. We show that the asymptotic distribution of the test statistic depends on whether the competing models are correctly specified or misspecified and are nested or nonnested. In addition, given the increasing interest in misspecified models, we propose a simple methodology for computing the standard errors of the estimated stochastic discount factor parameters that are robust to model misspecification. Using the same data as in Hodrick and Zhang (2001), we show that the commonly used returns and factors are, for the most part, too noisy to conclude that one model is superior to the other models in terms of Hansen-Jagannathan distance. In addition, we show that many of the macroeconomic factors commonly used in the literature are no longer priced once potential model misspecification is taken into account.

Suggested Citation

  • Raymond Kan & Cesare Robotti, 2007. "Model comparison using the Hansen-Jagannathan distance," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2007-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedawp:2007-04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.frbatlanta.org/-/media/documents/research/publications/wp/2007/wp0704.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wayne E. Ferson & Campbell R. Harvey, 1999. "Conditioning Variables and the Cross Section of Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1325-1360, August.
    2. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    3. Jagannathan, Ravi & Wang, Zhenyu, 1996. "The Conditional CAPM and the Cross-Section of Expected Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(1), pages 3-53, March.
    4. Hall, Alastair R. & Inoue, Atsushi, 2003. "The large sample behaviour of the generalized method of moments estimator in misspecified models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 361-394, June.
    5. Martin Lettau & Sydney Ludvigson, 2001. "Consumption, Aggregate Wealth, and Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(3), pages 815-849, June.
    6. Hansen, Lars Peter & Heaton, John & Luttmer, Erzo G J, 1995. "Econometric Evaluation of Asset Pricing Models," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 8(2), pages 237-274.
    7. Hodrick, Robert J. & Zhang, Xiaoyan, 2001. "Evaluating the specification errors of asset pricing models," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 327-376, November.
    8. Jagannathan, Ravi & Kubota, Keiichi & Takehara, Hitoshi, 1998. "Relationship between Labor-Income Risk and Average Return: Empirical Evidence from the Japanese Stock Market," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71(3), pages 319-347, July.
    9. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    10. Kan, Raymond & Robotti, Cesare, 2008. "Specification tests of asset pricing models using excess returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 816-838, December.
    11. Wayne E. Ferson & Ravi Jagannathan, 1996. "Econometric evaluation of asset pricing models," Staff Report 206, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    12. Vuong, Quang H, 1989. "Likelihood Ratio Tests for Model Selection and Non-nested Hypotheses," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 307-333, March.
    13. Xiaohong Chen & Sydney C. Ludvigson, 2009. "Land of addicts? an empirical investigation of habit‐based asset pricing models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(7), pages 1057-1093, November.
    14. Campbell, John Y, 1996. "Understanding Risk and Return," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(2), pages 298-345, April.
    15. Ferson, Wayne E & Harvey, Campbell R, 1991. "The Variation of Economic Risk Premiums," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 385-415, April.
    16. Sydney C. Ludvigson & Xiaohong Chen, 2004. "An Empirical Investigation of Habit-Based Asset Pricing Models," Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings 332, Econometric Society.
    17. Robert F. Dittmar, 2002. "Nonlinear Pricing Kernels, Kurtosis Preference, and Evidence from the Cross Section of Equity Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(1), pages 369-403, February.
    18. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    19. Cochrane, John H, 1996. "A Cross-Sectional Test of an Investment-Based Asset Pricing Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(3), pages 572-621, June.
    20. Douglas Rivers & Quang Vuong, 2002. "Model selection tests for nonlinear dynamic models," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 5(1), pages 1-39, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chrétien, Stéphane, 2012. "Bounds on the autocorrelation of admissible stochastic discount factors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 1943-1962.
    2. Kan, Raymond & Robotti, Cesare, 2008. "Specification tests of asset pricing models using excess returns," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 816-838, December.
    3. Roussanov, Nikolai, 2014. "Composition of wealth, conditioning information, and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 352-380.
    4. Raymond Kan & Cesare Robotti & Jay Shanken, 2013. "Pricing Model Performance and the Two‐Pass Cross‐Sectional Regression Methodology," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(6), pages 2617-2649, December.
    5. Patrick Gagliardini & Diego Ronchetti, 2020. "Comparing Asset Pricing Models by the Conditional Hansen-Jagannathan Distance," Journal of Financial Econometrics, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 333-394.
    6. Dahlquist, Magnus & Sallstrom, Torbjorn, 2002. "An Evaluation of International Asset Pricing Models," CEPR Discussion Papers 3145, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Ludvigson, Sydney C., 2013. "Advances in Consumption-Based Asset Pricing: Empirical Tests," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 799-906, Elsevier.
    8. Li, Haitao & Xu, Yuewu & Zhang, Xiaoyan, 2010. "Evaluating asset pricing models using the second Hansen-Jagannathan distance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 279-301, August.
    9. Kang, Jangkoo & Kim, Tong Suk & Lee, Changjun & Min, Byoung-Kyu, 2011. "Macroeconomic risk and the cross-section of stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 3158-3173.
    10. Gospodinov, Nikolay & Kan, Raymond & Robotti, Cesare, 2013. "Chi-squared tests for evaluation and comparison of asset pricing models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 173(1), pages 108-125.
    11. Maio, Paulo & Santa-Clara, Pedro, 2012. "Multifactor models and their consistency with the ICAPM," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 586-613.
    12. Amit Goyal, 2012. "Empirical cross-sectional asset pricing: a survey," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 26(1), pages 3-38, March.
    13. Sangwon Suh & Wonho Song & Bong-Soo Lee, 2014. "A new method for forming asset pricing factors from firm characteristics," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(28), pages 3463-3482, October.
    14. Gospodinov, Nikolay & Kan, Raymond & Robotti, Cesare, 2016. "On the properties of the constrained Hansen–Jagannathan distance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 121-150.
    15. Fletcher, Jonathan & Kihanda, Joseph, 2005. "An examination of alternative CAPM-based models in UK stock returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(12), pages 2995-3014, December.
    16. Wayne E. Ferson & Suresh K. Nallareddy & Biqin Xie, 2012. "The "Out of Sample" Performance of Long-run Risk Models," NBER Working Papers 17848, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Grammig, Joachim & Schrimpf, Andreas, 2009. "Asset pricing with a reference level of consumption: New evidence from the cross-section of stock returns," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 113-123, August.
    18. Balduzzi, Pierluigi & Robotti, Cesare, 2010. "Asset pricing models and economic risk premia: A decomposition," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 54-80, January.
    19. Nikolay Gospodinov & Raymond Kan & Cesare Robotti, 2010. "On the Hansen-Jagannathan distance with a no-arbitrage constraint," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2010-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    20. Boons, M.F., 2014. "Sorting out commodity and macroeconomic risk in expected stock returns," Other publications TiSEM 1ebdac58-bf37-499d-8835-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedawp:2007-04. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Rob Sarwark (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbatus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.