In 2001, a small group of academics and practitioners met to discuss the equity risk premium (ERP). Ten years later, in 2011, a similar discussion took place, with participants writing up their thoughts for this volume. The result is a rich set of papers that practitioners may find useful in...

During the 2010s, the assets of public pension plans generated significantly higher returns than their assumed, or actuarial, rates of return. In a sample of sixty-nine U.S. public plans with a total of $2.1 trillion of assets, the return outperformance of assets over the assumed returns was...

Municipal (muni) bonds are risky and trade in illiquid markets, and both effects serve to raise muni yields relative to Treasuries. On the other hand, the tax exemption of muni bonds tends to lower their yields. We decompose the muni yield spread into credit, liquidity, and tax components....

Stocks with large increases in call implied volatilities over the previous month tend to have high future returns while stocks with large increases in put implied volatilities over the previous month tend to have low future returns. Sorting stocks ranked into decile portfolios by past call...