This paper studies the relation between aggregate stock returns and contemporaneous and future cross-sectional earnings dispersion. We hypothesize that increases in expected earnings dispersion signal increases in uncertainty and increases in unemployment, thereby causing expected returns to...

This study predicts and finds that the interaction of firm-level and aggregate-level shocks explains a significant portion of shocks to macroeconomic activity. Specifically, we hypothesize that the relation between uncertainty and economic growth is most pronounced when both firm-level and...

Employing a broad sample of US firms over the period 1962 to 2009, we provide evidence of a liquidity risk impact on the fundamental earnings-returns relation. Specifically, we document that current liquidity risk has a positive moderating effect on the relation between current returns and next...

We reexamine the time-series properties and determinants of the relation between aggregate earnings and returns (earnings response coefficient, ERC) employing return decompositions with longer historical data. We find that aggregate ERC is time-varying, above and beyond the evidence documented...

We provide strong support for the underappreciated expected earnings hypothesis of negative correlation between aggregate stock returns and earnings (Sadka and Sadka (2009); Choi, Kalay, and Sadka (2016)). For the 1970 to 2000 period studied by Kothari, Lewellen, and Warner (2006), our powerful...

The relation between aggregate earnings and aggregate returns is complex and not fully understood. For example, in contrast to firm-level relations, prior literature finds aggregate earnings changes and aggregate stock returns are negatively related. This paper constructs new measures of...

We investigate the change in the aggregate earnings-returns relation from negative to positive. We first identify a gradual structural break around the second quarter of 1991. We then find evidence of three contributing factors to the change in the relation. They are: i) an increase in the...

We construct an earnings based zero-investment portfolio that is related to the business cycle. The portfolio, PMN, is long in stocks that have had high earnings changes in the last quarter and is short in stocks that have had low earnings changes in the last quarter. PMN is related to future...

This paper studies the effects of predictability on the earnings-returns relation for individual firms and for the aggregate. We demonstrate that prices better anticipate earnings growth at the aggregate level than at the firm level, which implies that random-walk models are inappropriate for...

In an efficient market, prices should vary only if investors change their expectations about cash flows, discount factors, or both. Prior research showed that dividend yield varies mostly due to variation in expected returns, and contains little information about cash flow. This literature...