Discussion Paper
The Capital Asset Pricing Model as a General Equilibrium with Incomplete Markets
We recast the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) in the broader context of general equilibrium with incomplete markets (GEI). In this setting we give proofs of three properties of CAPM equilibria: they are efficient, asset prices lie on a “security market line,” and all agents hold the same two mutual funds. The first property requires a riskless asset, the latter two do not. We show that across all GEI only one of these three properties of equilibrium is generally valid: asset prices depend on covariances, not variances.