Understanding volatility is crucial for informed investment decisions. Our paper explores the volatility of the market, size, and value premiums of the Fama-French three-factor model for US equity returns.

Volatility and Premiums in US Equity Returns (PDF)

Foreword

I was invited by the editors to contribute a professional autobiography for the Annual Review of Financial Economics.  I focus on what I think is my best stuff.  Readers interested in the rest can download my vita from the website of the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business.  I only briefly discuss ideas and their origins, to give the flavor of context and motivation.  I do not attempt to review the contributions of others, which is likely to raise feathers.  Mea culpa in advance.

By Eugene F. Fama and Kenneth R. French

Our paper, "Luck versus Skill in the Cross Section of Mutual Fund Returns," examines the performance during 1984-2006 of actively managed US mutual funds that invest primarily in US equities.  It is an academic paper with lots of technical detail.  The purpose of this white paper is to provide a summary of the results that are relevant for investors.  We begin by examining the overall α for aggregate wealth invested in actively managed mutual funds.  We then turn to the performance of individual funds.

by Eugene F. Fama and Kenneth R. French

William F. Sharpe has a great article in the January/February 1991 issue of The Financial Analysts Journal (Vol. 47, No.1, pages 7-9). The title is "The Arithmetic of Active Management." It should be required reading for academics and investment professionals alike.

by Eugene F. Fama and Kenneth R. French

The cap-weighted market portfolio of NYSE-Amex-Nasdaq stocks delivered a
-38.31% return for 2008. The experience was painful, but was it out of bounds? The volatility of returns also increased a lot during 2008. Was the observed volatility consistent with prior experience? These are the questions addressed here.

by EUGENE F. FAMA

In his NY Times blog Paul Krugman attacks my piece on the stimulus plan.

Again, here is my argument in three sentences.

1. Bailouts and stimulus plans must be financed.

2. If the financing takes the form of additional government debt, the added debt displaces other uses of the same funds.

3. Thus, stimulus plans only enhance incomes when they move resources from less productive to more productive uses.

Are any of these statements incorrect?

by EUGENE F. FAMA

There has been lots of response to my little essay on bailouts and stimulus plans. I will only comment on the negative ones that I think have merit and are overlooked in my original paper.

First, however, I want to restate my argument in simple terms.

1. Bailouts and stimulus plans must be financed.

2. If the financing takes the form of additional government debt, the added debt displaces other uses of the funds.

3. Thus, stimulus plans only enhance incomes when they move resources from less productive to more productive uses.

Are any of these statements incorrect?

by EUGENE F. FAMA

There is an identity in macroeconomics. It says that in any given year private investment must equal the sum of private savings, corporate savings (retained earnings), and government savings (the government surplus, which is more likely negative, that is, a deficit),

In a global economy the quantities in the equation are global. This means the equation need not hold in a particular country, but it must hold in the world as a whole. For example, in recent years private investment in the US has been greater than the sum of private, corporate, and government savings in the US. This means the US has been importing savings from the rest of the world (by selling US securities to the rest of the world). But the equation always holds for the world as whole.

by EUGENE F. FAMA

The financial sector provides the grease that makes the transfer of savings to productive investments more efficient. This role is critical for the health of the economy.

Government injections of equity capital into financial institutions can make sense if the whole financial system is in danger. But it is important that injections are at minimum cost to taxpayers, that is, without unnecessary subsidies. Problems on this score arise when the funds go primarily to prop up the value of a financial institution's existing debt. In this case the true amount of new equity capital is less than the injection of funds by the government, and the subsidy to debt holders is a loss to taxpayers with no clear offsetting benefits. My purpose here is to describe how this problem arises and how it can be avoided.