This paper shows that unexpected stock returns must be associated with changes in expected future dividends or expected future returns A vector autoregressive method is used to break unexpected stock returns into these two components. In U.S. monthly data in 1927-88, one-third of the variance of...

When a rate of return is regressed on a lagged stochastic regressor, such as a dividend yield, the regression disturbance is correlated with the regressor's innovation. The OLS estimator's finite-sample properties, derived here, can depart substantially from the standard regression setting....

The largest commercial bank stocks, ranked by total size of the balance sheet, have significantly lower risk-adjusted returns than small- and medium-sized bank stocks, even though large banks are significantly more levered. We uncover a size factor in the component of bank returns that is...

We decompose the returns differential between U.S. portfolio claims and liabilities into the composition, return, and timing effects. Our most striking and robust finding is that foreigners exhibit poor timing when reallocating between bonds and equities within their U.S. portfolios. The poor...

We apply the method of constrained asset share estimation (CASE) to test the mean-variance efficiency (MVE) of the stock market. This method allows conditional expected returns to vary in relatively unrestricted ways. The data estimate reasonably the price of risk, and, in some cases, the MVE...

A single macroeconomic factor based on growth in the capital share of aggregate income exhibits significant explanatory power for expected returns across a range of equity characteristic portfolios and non-equity asset classes, with risk price estimates that are of the same sign and similar in...

Hedge fund managers are compensated via management fees on the assets under management (AUM) and incentive fees indexed to the high-water mark (HWM). We study the effects of managerial skills (alpha) and compensation on dynamic leverage choices and the valuation of fees and investors' payoffs....

Optimal investment of firms implies that expected stock returns are tied with the expected marginal benefit of investment divided by the marginal cost of investment. Winners have higher expected growth and expected marginal productivity (two major components of the marginal benefit of...