We combine annual stock market data for the most important equity markets of the last four centuries: the Netherlands/U.K. (1629-1812), U.K. (1813-1870) and U.S. (1871-2015). We show that dividend yields are stationary and consistently forecast returns. The documented predictability holds for...

Among the numerous familiar sets of specific assumptions sufficient to derive mean-variance portfolio behavior from more general expected utility maximization in continuous time, the assumptions of constant relative risk aversion and joint normally distributed asset return assessments are also...

A sticky-price model is used to motivate a structural VAR analysis of the current account and the real exchange rate for seven major industrialized countries (the US, Canada, the UK, Japan, Germany, France and Italy). The analysis is distinguished from previous work in that it adopts minimal...

We model the conditional mean and volatility of stock returns as a latent vector autoregressive (VAR) process to study the contemporaneous and intertemporal relationship between expected returns and risk in a flexible statistical framework and without relying on exogenous predictors. We find a...

This paper makes the following original contributions to the literature. (1) We develop a simpler analytical characterization and numerical algorithm for Bayesian inference in structural vector autoregressions that can be used for models that are overidentified, just-identified, or...

This paper develops a structural VAR model to measure how a shock to one country can affect the GDP of other countries. It uses trade linkages to estimate the multiplier effects of a shock as it is transmitted through other countries' output fluctuations. The paper introduces a new specification...