We review the literature on return and cash flow growth predictability form the perspective of the present-value identity. We focus predominantly on recent work. Our emphasis is on U.S. aggregate stock return predictability, but we also discuss evidence from other asset classes and countries

This paper compares the market value of highly leveraged transactions (HLTs) to the discounted value of their corresponding cash flow forecasts. These forecasts are provided by management to investors and shareholders in 51 HLTs completed between 1983 and 1989. Our estimates of discounted cash...

Kaplan and Zingales [1997] provide both theoretical arguments and empirical evidence that investment-cash flow sensitivities are not good indicators of financing constraints. Fazzari, Hubbard and Petersen [1999] criticize those findings. In this note, we explain how the Fazzari et al. [1999]...

We develop a model to predict consumer default based on deep learning. We show that the model consistently outperforms standard credit scoring models, even though it uses the same data. Our model is interpretable and is able to provide a score to a larger class of borrowers relative to standard...

The best predictor of current investment at the firm level is lagged investment. This lagged-investment effect is empirically more important than the cash-flow and Q effects combined. We show that the specification of investment adjustment costs proposed by Christiano, Eichenbaum and Evans...

We show the unique form that must be taken by a tax system based entirely on realization accounting to implement a uniform capital income tax, or, equivalently, a uniform wealth tax. This system combines elements of an accrual based capital income tax and a traditional cash flow tax, having many...

By postulating a simple stochastic process for the firm's cash flows in which the drift and the variance of the process depend on the investment policy of the firm, we develop a theoretical model, determine the optimal investment policy and, given this policy, calculate the ratio of the current...

We present a novel approach to depicting asset pricing dynamics by characterizing shock exposures and prices for alternative investment horizons. We quantify the shock exposures in terms of elasticities that measure the impact of a current shock on future cash-flow growth. The elasticities are...

The fiscal gains from, and hence the political incentives to, an increase in inflation rate of ten percentage points may be substantial: with Swedish data from 1994, these gains would have been an annual real flow of 3-4 percent of GDP, or a capitalized value of nearly 100 percent of GDP. They...