Using the credit spread as an option-risk factor: Size and value effects in CAPM

Abstract

This paper takes an option-theoretic approach to explain why pricing anomalies are observed when traditional CAPM is used. By extending CAPM to incorporate the option-risk factor of stocks, we show that stockholders' limited liability can explain Fama and French's size and value effects. We use bonds' excess credit spread as a proxy for stocks' default risk to control for the changing non-diversifiable option-risk characteristic of stocks. Because sensitivity to the excess credit spread becomes smaller as size increases and as value decreases, excess credit spread explains the CAPM anomalies in a fashion similar to the Fama-French factors. While the excess credit spread is significant in explaining Fama and French's size and value effects, adding the Fama-French factors does not improve the performance of our model. Our revised model resembles conditional CAPM, but it offers a more intuitive explanation for the size and value effects. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.