Investors have too often extrapolated from recent experience. In the 1950s, who but the most rampant optimist would have dreamt that over the next fifty years the real return on equities would be 9% per year? Yet this is what happened in the U.S. stock market. The optimists triumphed. However,...

We examine time discounting factors in an international survey. Our analysis reveals a significant relationship between time discount factors and historical equity premiums across 27 countries. This result implies that higher historical equity risk premiums are observed in countries where survey...