| Abstract: | We undertake a decomposition of the risk factor loadings of 15 national stock market returns from 1972 to 1990, using a variant of the Campbell-Shiller (1988) linearisation. (Campbell, John Y. and Shiller, Robert J., ‘The dividend-price ratio and expectations of future dividends and discount factors’, Review of Financial Studies, Vol. 1, 1988, pp. 195–228.) We find considerable variation among countries in the relative importance of a cash flow component and a discount rate component in determining the beta with the world equity index return and with other risk factors. Also, the substantial international heterogeneity in factor loadings suggests that a global portfolio allows ample hedging opportunities, presumably deriving from differences in underlying economic structure. |
