"Mehra and Prescott (1985) found the difference between average equity and debt returns puzzling because it was too large to be a premium for bearing nondiversifiable aggregate risk. Here, we re-examine this puzzle, taking into account some factors ignored by Mehra and Prescott--taxes,...

We show that the level of interest rates determines the magnitude of mispricing at the turn of the tax year, as investors face the trade-off between selling a temporarily-depressed stock this year and selling next year, but delaying tax implications by one year. Interest rates do explain the...