Exploring Downside Co-Skewness and Upside Co-Kurtosis: Implications for Asset Pricing Models

This study examines how the investors' preferences for downside co-skewness and upside co-kurtosis may influence the asset pricing. We analyze data from 2000 to 2021, encompassing 2874 companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Our methodology includes both time series and cross-sectional analyses, employing the Fama-Macbeth approach. Our findings reveal that the estimated values for downside co-skewness and upside co-kurtosis contribute to a significant premium, one that remains unexplained by traditional market factors such as size, value, profitability, and investment. Furthermore, when these higher-order co-moments are incorporated into the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), they demonstrate significant explanatory power in understanding the variations in stock returns. This augmented CAPM, with downside co-skewness and upside co-kurtosis, exhibits a superior goodness-of-fit compared to conventional asset pricing models. This suggests a crucial link between these higher-order risk factors and stock valuation, offering new insights into the complexities of investor behavior and market dynamics.