Portfolio Selection with Monotone Mean-Variance Preferences

We propose a portfolio selection model based on a class of monotone preferences that coincide with mean-variance preferences on their domain of monotonicity, but differ where mean-variance preferences fail to be monotone and are therefore not economically meaningful. The functional associated to this new class of preferences is the best approximation of the mean-variance functional among those which are monotonic. We solve the portfolio selection problem and we derive a monotone version of the CAPM, which has two main features: (i) it is, unlike the standard CAPM model, arbitrage free, (ii) it has empirically testable CAPM-like relations. The monotone CAPM has thus a sounder theoretical foundation than the standard CAPM and a comparable empirical tractability.