This article argues that high historical excess returns to equity were the result of a severe ex post bias in the period from 1915 to ca 1960 because inflation surprises during this period drove a wedge between ex ante and ex post returns to bonds. Furthermore, it is shown that ex ante and ex...

In an influential paper Bernatzi and Thaler (1995) (B&T) show that Myopic Loss Aversion (MLA) can explain the equity premium in the US over the period 1926 to 1990. However, bond returns, in their simulations, are based on coupons only. Allowing for capital gains on bonds in the simulations...