The expected return on equity capital is possibly the most important driving factor in asset allocation decisions. Yet, the long-term estimates we typically use are derived from U.S. data only. There are reasons to suspect, however, that these estimates of return on capital are subject to survivorship, as the United States is arguably the most successful capitalist system in the world; most other countries have been plagued by political upheaval, war, and financial crises. The purpose of this paper is to provide estimates of return on capital from long-term histories for world equity markets. By putting together a variety of sources, we collected a database of capital appreciation indexes for 39 markets with histories going back as far back as the l920s. Our results are striking. We find that the United States has by far the highest uninterrupted real rate of appreciation of all countries, at about 5 percent annually. For other countries, the median real appreciation rate is about 1.5 percent. The high return premium obtained for U.S. equities therefore appears to be the exception rather than the rule. Our global databases also allow us to reconstruct monthly real and dollar-valued capital appreciation indices for global markets, providing further evidence on the benefits of international diversification.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Find related papers by JEL classification: F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements N2 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
William N. Goetzmann & Philippe Jorion, 1997.
"Re-emerging Markets,"
NBER Working Papers
5906, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Goetzmann, William N & Jorion, Philippe, 1995.
"A Longer Look at Dividend Yields,"
Journal of Business,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(4), pages 483-508, October.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
William N. Goetzmann & Philippe Jorion, 1997.
"Re-emerging Markets,"
NBER Working Papers
5906, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Other versions: