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Do survey expectations of stock returns reflect risk adjustments?

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  • Adam, Klaus
  • Matveev, Dmitry
  • Nagel, Stefan

Abstract

To reconcile the disconnect between survey expectations of stock returns and rational expectations, researchers have hypothesized that survey participants may confound beliefs and preferences by (i) reporting risk-neutral forecasts of future returns; or (ii) reporting pessimistically-tilted forecasts reflecting ambiguity aversion or robustness concerns. We find that these hypotheses are strongly rejected by the data, albeit for different reasons: Inconsistent with hypothesis (i), survey return forecasts are reliably much higher than risk-free interest rates and survey expected excess returns are predictably time-varying. Inconsistent with (ii), agents are not always pessimistic about future returns, but often predictably optimistic and unconditionally unbiased.

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  • Adam, Klaus & Matveev, Dmitry & Nagel, Stefan, 2021. "Do survey expectations of stock returns reflect risk adjustments?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 723-740.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:moneco:v:117:y:2021:i:c:p:723-740
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2020.04.010
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    Cited by:

    1. Stefano Giglio & Matteo Maggiori & Johannes Stroebel & Stephen Utkus, 2021. "Five Facts about Beliefs and Portfolios," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(5), pages 1481-1522, May.
    2. Cosmin L. Ilut & Martin Schneider, 2022. "Modeling Uncertainty as Ambiguity: a Review," NBER Working Papers 29915, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Klaus Adam & Oliver Pfäuti & Timo Reinelt, 2020. "Falling Natural Rates, Rising Housing Volatility and the Optimal Inflation Target," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2020_235, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    4. Boehl, Gregor, 2022. "Monetary policy and speculative asset markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    5. Pei Kuang, 2019. "New Tests of Expectation Formation with Applications to Asset Pricing Models," 2019 Meeting Papers 187, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. Weidong Tian, 2021. "Long Run Law and Entropy," Papers 2111.06238, arXiv.org.
    7. Vedolin, Andrea & Maenhout, Pascal & Xing, Hao, 2020. "Generalized Robustness and Dynamic Pessimism," CEPR Discussion Papers 14592, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Richard K. Crump & Stefano Eusepi & Emanuel Moench & Bruce Preston, 2021. "The Term Structure of Expectations," Staff Reports 992, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    9. Alexander M. Chinco & Samuel M. Hartzmark & Abigail B. Sussman, 2020. "Necessary Evidence For A Risk Factor’s Relevance," NBER Working Papers 27227, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. de Oliveira Souza, Thiago, 2019. "Predictability concentrates in bad times. And so does disagreement," Discussion Papers on Economics 8/2019, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    11. Wang, Hailong & Hu, Duni, 2022. "Heterogenous beliefs with sentiments and asset pricing," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    12. Pei Kuang & Renbin Zhang & Tongbin Zhang, 2019. "New Tests of Expectation Formation with Applications to Asset Pricing Models," Discussion Papers 19-05, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    13. Pascal J. Maenhout & Andrea Vedolin & Hao Xing, 2020. "Generalized Robustness and Dynamic Pessimism," NBER Working Papers 26970, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Sias, Richard & Starks, Laura T. & Turtle, H.J., 2023. "The negativity bias and perceived return distributions: Evidence from a pandemic," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 627-657.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Expectations; Asset pricing;

    JEL classification:

    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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