The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.
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Mean‐Gini, Portfolio Theory, and the Pricing of Risky Assets
Published: 12/01/1984 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1984.tb04917.x
HAIM SHALIT, SHLOMO YITZHAKI
This paper presents the mean‐Gini (MG) approach to analyze risky prospects and construct optimum portfolios. The proposed method has the simplicity of a mean‐variance model and the main features of stochastic dominance efficiency. Since mean‐Gini is consistent with investor behavior under uncertainty for a wide class of probability distributions, Gini's mean difference is shown to be more adequate than the variance for evaluating the variability of a prospect. The MG approach is then applied to capital markets and the security valuation theorem is derived as a general relationship between average return and risk. This is further extended to include a degree of risk aversion that can be estimated from capital market data. The analysis is concluded with the concentration ratio to allow for the classification of different securities with respect to their relative riskiness.