"This paper shows that the stock market downturns of 2000-2002 and 2007-09 have very different proximate causes. The early 2000's saw a large increase in the discount rates applied to corporate profits by rational investors, while the late 2000's saw a decrease in rational expectations of future...

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...