We compare the stock return forecasting performance of alternative payout yields. The net payout yield produces more accurate forecasts relative to alternatives, including the traditional dividend yield. This remains true even after excluding several years during the Great Depression when...

We examine the predictive ability of the aggregate earnings yield for market returns and earnings growth by estimating variance decompositions at multiple horizons. Based on weighted long-horizon regressions, we find that most of the variation in the earnings yield is due to return...

There is a generalized conviction that variation in dividend yields is exclusively related to expected returns and not to expected dividend growth - e.g. Cochrane's presidential address (Cochrane (2011)). We show that this pattern, although valid for the aggregate stock market, is not true for...

The capital asset pricing model (CAPM) receives both criticism and widespread adoption by practitioners and academics as the weighted average cost of capital (WACC) equity component. This study introduces two new costs of equity measures to address CAPM criticisms and provide new perspective on...

Returns from a zero-investment portfolio that is long in US firms whose dividends alter during a year, and short in firms whose dividends remain the same, produces positive returns in 52 of the 53 years between 1955 and 2007. These positive returns are related to expected inflation, which...

We derive and test q-theory implications for cross-sectional stock returns. Under constant returns to scale, stock returns equal levered investment returns, which are tied directly to firm characteristics. When we use GMM to match average levered investment returns to average observed stock...

We derive and test q-theory implications for cross-sectional stock returns. Under constant returns to scale, stock returns equal levered investment returns, which are tied directly to firm characteristics. When we use GMM to match average levered investment returns to average observed stock...

We take a simple q-theory model and ask how well it can explain external financing anomalies, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Our central insight is that optimal investment is an important driving force of these anomalies. The model simultaneously reproduces procyclical equity issuance...

This paper addresses the issue of forecasting the term structure. We provide a unified state-space modelling framework that encompasses different existing discrete-time yield curve models. Within such framework we analyze the impact of two modelling choices, namely the imposition of no-arbitrage...