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The Dog That Did Not Bark: A Defense of Return Predictability

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  • John H. Cochrane

Abstract

If returns are not predictable, dividend growth must be predictable, to generate the observed variation in divided yields. I find that the absence of dividend growth predictability gives stronger evidence than does the presence of return predictability. Long-horizon return forecasts give the same strong evidence. These tests exploit the negative correlation of return forecasts with dividend-yield autocorrelation across samples, together with sensible upper bounds on dividend-yield autocorrelation, to deliver more powerful statistics. I reconcile my findings with the literature that finds poor power in long-horizon return forecasts, and with the literature that notes the poor out-of-sample R-super-2 of return-forecasting regressions. The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Society for Financial Studies in its journal The Review of Financial Studies.

Volume (Year): 21 (2008)
Issue (Month): 4 (July)
Pages: 1533-1575

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Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:21:y:2008:i:4:p:1533-1575

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