The Price of Risk on the African Frontier Stock Markets

The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), and the Fama-French and Carhart models have been widely applied in the developed and most emerging markets; however, there is scant evidence of the viability of the models on the African Frontier Stock Markets (AFSMs). This study examines the viability of the models for a sample that pools securities across nine AFSMs, and whether or not the risk factors of these models command risk premium on the AFSMs. The paper provides evidence of the existence of the size, value and momentum effects on the AFSMs. In addition, the models only partly capture the returns to size and book-to-market sorted portfolios on the AFSMs. Also, the risk factors of these models generally, command marginally significant premium on the AFSMs. Caution should in general be exercised when applying these models on the AFSMs.