We use the 2008 crisis as an exogenous shock to the pension funding status of U.S. corporate defined benefit (DB) pension plans to examine the causal impact on the assumption of the expected return on pension assets (ER). Contrary to prior literature, we find that DB pension plans transitioning...

We provide evidence using data from the G7 countries suggesting that return dispersion may serve as an economic state variable in that it reliably predicts time-variation in economic activity, market returns, the value and momentum premia and market volatility. A relatively high return...

Long-term country equity premium forecasts based on a cross-sectional global factor model (CS-GFM), where factors represent compensation for risks proxied by valuation and financial variables, are superior, statistically and economically, from forecasts based on time-series prediction models...