IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jecfin/v39y2015i1p153-170.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Health care and the cross-section of US stock returns

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Payne
  • John Geppert

Abstract

Health care costs represent a large and growing component of business and consumer expenditures in the US. Medical inflation represents these costs, and it differs from aggregate inflation and other market factors with respect to its rate of growth, statistical properties and the extent to which it can be hedged by households and firms. Using multiple model specifications for the 25-year period from 1985 to 2009, we find medical inflation is robustly priced in the cross-section of US stock returns. It commands a risk premium of between 31 and 51 basis points per annum per unit change in beta. Medical inflation is also unique in that it represents the only inflationary component that robustly explains the cross-section of stock returns in this manner and is not subsumed by other common factors in the literature. These results quantify the health care industry’s unique and significant role in the US economy and stock market, further rationalizing the substantial attention this industry receives. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Payne & John Geppert, 2015. "Health care and the cross-section of US stock returns," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 39(1), pages 153-170, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jecfin:v:39:y:2015:i:1:p:153-170
    DOI: 10.1007/s12197-013-9255-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s12197-013-9255-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12197-013-9255-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fama, Eugene F, 1981. "Stock Returns, Real Activity, Inflation, and Money," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 545-565, September.
    2. Stephen A. Ross, 2013. "The Arbitrage Theory of Capital Asset Pricing," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 1, pages 11-30, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2001. "Vector Autoregressions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 101-115, Fall.
    4. Fama, Eugene F & MacBeth, James D, 1973. "Risk, Return, and Equilibrium: Empirical Tests," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 607-636, May-June.
    5. Aretz, Kevin & Bartram, Söhnke M. & Pope, Peter F., 2010. "Macroeconomic risks and characteristic-based factor models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1383-1399, June.
    6. Cenesizoglu, Tolga, 2011. "Size, book-to-market ratio and macroeconomic news," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 248-270, March.
    7. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1992. "The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 427-465, June.
    8. Hahn, Jaehoon & Lee, Hangyong, 2006. "Yield Spreads as Alternative Risk Factors for Size and Book-to-Market," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(2), pages 245-269, June.
    9. Schwert, G William, 1981. "The Adjustment of Stock Prices to Information about Inflation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(1), pages 15-29, March.
    10. Shanken, Jay, 1992. "On the Estimation of Beta-Pricing Models," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(1), pages 1-33.
    11. Fama, Eugene F. & Schwert, G. William, 1977. "Asset returns and inflation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 115-146, November.
    12. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    13. Bodie, Zvi, 1976. "Common Stocks as a Hedge against Inflation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(2), pages 459-470, May.
    14. Geske, Robert & Roll, Richard, 1983. "The Fiscal and Monetary Linkage between Stock Returns and Inflation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 38(1), pages 1-33, March.
    15. Fama, Eugene F. & Gibbons, Michael R., 1984. "A comparison of inflation forecasts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 327-348, May.
    16. Chen, Nai-Fu & Roll, Richard & Ross, Stephen A, 1986. "Economic Forces and the Stock Market," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(3), pages 383-403, July.
    17. Fama, Eugene F. & Gibbons, Michael R., 1982. "Inflation, real returns and capital investment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 297-323.
    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. William F. Sharpe, 1964. "Capital Asset Prices: A Theory Of Market Equilibrium Under Conditions Of Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 19(3), pages 425-442, September.
    20. Boudoukh, Jacob & Richardson, Matthew, 1993. "Stock Returns and Inflation: A Long-Horizon Perspective," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1346-1355, December.
    21. Mark J. Flannery & Aris A. Protopapadakis, 2002. "Macroeconomic Factors Do Influence Aggregate Stock Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(3), pages 751-782.
    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. Qi Shi & Bin Li & Adrian (Wai Kong) Cheung & Richard Chung, 2017. "Augmenting the intertemporal CAPM with inflation: Further evidence from alternative models," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 42(4), pages 653-672, November.
    2. Sellin, Peter, 1998. "Monetary Policy and the Stock Market: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Working Paper Series 72, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    3. Javid, Attiya Yasmin & Ahmad, Eatzaz, 2008. "Testing multifactor capital asset pricing model in case of Pakistani market," MPRA Paper 37341, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Docherty, Paul & Chan, Howard & Easton, Steve, 2013. "Can we treat empirical regularities as state variables in the ICAPM? Evidence from Australia," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 107-124.
    5. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2013. "Understanding Asset Prices," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2013-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    6. Gregory Connor & Lisa R. Goldberg & Robert A. Korajczyk, 2010. "Portfolio Risk Analysis," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9224.
    7. Zaremba, Adam & Cakici, Nusret & Bianchi, Robert J. & Long, Huaigang, 2023. "Interest rate changes and the cross-section of global equity returns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    8. Peter Sellin, 2001. "Monetary Policy and the Stock Market: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(4), pages 491-541, September.
    9. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7847 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Fernando Rubio, 2005. "Eficiencia De Mercado, Administracion De Carteras De Fondos Y Behavioural Finance," Finance 0503028, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Jul 2005.
    11. Andrew Ang & Marie Brière & Ombretta Signori, 2012. "Inflation and Individual Equities," NBER Working Papers 17798, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Díaz, Antonio & Jareño, Francisco, 2009. "Explanatory factors of the inflation news impact on stock returns by sector: The Spanish case," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 349-368, September.
    13. Mikael C. Bergbrant & Patrick J. Kelly, 2016. "Macroeconomic Expectations and the Size, Value, and Momentum Factors," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 45(4), pages 809-844, December.
    14. Aretz, Kevin & Bartram, Söhnke M. & Pope, Peter F., 2010. "Macroeconomic risks and characteristic-based factor models," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1383-1399, June.
    15. Kevin P. Evans & Alan E. H. Speight, 2006. "Real‐Time Risk Pricing Over the Business Cycle: Some Evidence for the UK," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(1‐2), pages 263-283, January.
    16. Bali, Turan G. & Brown, Stephen J. & Caglayan, Mustafa Onur, 2011. "Do hedge funds' exposures to risk factors predict their future returns?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 36-68, July.
    17. Boons, Martijn & Duarte, Fernando & de Roon, Frans & Szymanowska, Marta, 2020. "Time-varying inflation risk and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 444-470.
    18. Hammami Yacine & Jilani Faouzi, 2011. "Testing Factor Pricing Models in Tunisia: Macroeconomic Factors vs. Fundamental Factors," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-22, September.
    19. Sainan Jin & Liangjun Su & Yonghui Zhang, 2015. "Nonparametric testing for anomaly effects in empirical asset pricing models," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 9-36, February.
    20. Y. Malevergne & D. Sornette, 2007. "A two-Factor Asset Pricing Model and the Fat Tail Distribution of Firm Sizes," Papers physics/0702027, arXiv.org.
    21. 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

    Keywords

    Health care; Asset returns; Risk factors; G10; G11; G32;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    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:spr:jecfin:v:39:y:2015:i:1:p:153-170. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.