IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/eurjfi/v5y1999i3p186-201.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Equity returns, bond returns, and the equity premium in the German capital market

Author

Listed:
  • Wolfgang Bessler

Abstract

This article reviews the empirical evidence for equity returns, bond returns, and the equity premium in the German capital market for the period from 1870 to 1995. Taken together, the studies reviewed provide convincing evidence that over longer investment periods, average equity returns have been higher than average bond returns. These excess returns, however, have been highly volatile and negative in many years, illustrating the higher risk of equity investments. Moreover, market timing had a major positive or negative impact on overall returns. Despite the historical evidence of a substantial equity premium there is still little equity investment by German households.

Suggested Citation

  • Wolfgang Bessler, 1999. "Equity returns, bond returns, and the equity premium in the German capital market," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 186-201.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eurjfi:v:5:y:1999:i:3:p:186-201
    DOI: 10.1080/135184799337037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/135184799337037
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/135184799337037?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John H. Cochrane, 1997. "Where is the market going? Uncertain facts and novel theories," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 21(Nov), pages 3-37.
    2. Andrew B. Abel, 1991. "The equity premium puzzle," Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, issue Sep, pages 3-14.
    3. Adrian Buckley, 1999. "An introduction to security returns," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 165-180.
    4. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    5. Daniel C. Indro & Wayne Y. Lee, 1997. "Biases in Arithmetic and Geometric Averages as Estimates of Long-Run Expected Returns and Risk Premia," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 26(4), Winter.
    6. Jeremy J. Siegel & Richard H. Thaler, 1997. "Anomalies: The Equity Premium Puzzle," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 191-200, Winter.
    7. Narayana R. Kocherlakota, 1996. "The Equity Premium: It's Still a Puzzle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 42-71, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hans Eijgenhuijsen & Adrian Buckley, 1999. "An overview of returns in Europe," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 276-297.
    2. Achleitner, Ann-Kristin & Andres, Christian & Betzer, André & Weir, Charlie, 2008. "Economic consequences of private equity investments on the German stock market," CEFS Working Paper Series 2008-05, Technische Universität München (TUM), Center for Entrepreneurial and Financial Studies (CEFS).
    3. Ann-Kristin Achleitner & Christian Andres & Andre Betzer & Charlie Weir, 2011. "Wealth effects of private equity investments on the German stock market," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 217-239.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Prat, Georges, 2013. "Equity risk premium and time horizon: What do the U.S. secular data say?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 76-88.
    2. Fernandez, Pablo & Aguirreamalloa, Javier & Liechtenstein, Heinrich, 2009. "The equity premium puzzle: High required equity premium, undervaluation and self fulfilling prophecy," IESE Research Papers D/821, IESE Business School.
    3. Shackman, Joshua D., 2006. "The equity premium and market integration: Evidence from international data," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 155-179, April.
    4. Rajnish Mehra, 2006. "The Equity Premium in India," NBER Working Papers 12434, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Longstaff, Francis A. & Piazzesi, Monika, 2004. "Corporate earnings and the equity premium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 401-421, December.
    6. Angelo Melino & Alan X. Yang, 2003. "State Dependent Preferences Can Explain the Equity Premium Puzzle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 6(4), pages 806-830, October.
    7. Longstaff, Francis & Piazzesi, Monika, 2002. "Corporate Earnings and the Equity Premium," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt3qn115m4, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    8. Brennan, Michael J. & Xia, Yihong, 2001. "Stock price volatility and equity premium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 249-283, April.
    9. Ågren, Martin, 2005. "Myopic Loss Aversion, the Equity Premium Puzzle, and GARCH," Working Paper Series 2005:11, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    10. Pascal St-Amour, 2004. "Ratchet vs Blasé Investors and Asset Markets," CIRANO Working Papers 2004s-11, CIRANO.
    11. Roelof Salomons, 2008. "A Theoretical And Practical Perspective On The Equity Risk Premium," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 299-329, April.
    12. Alon Brav & George M. Constantinides & Christopher C. Geczy, 2002. "Asset Pricing with Heterogeneous Consumers and Limited Participation: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 793-824, August.
    13. Johannes K. Dreyer & Johannes Schneider & William T. Smith, 2020. "Saving-Based Asset Pricing and Leisure," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 21(2), pages 507-526, November.
    14. Glen Donaldson & Mark Kamstra & Lisa Kramer, 2003. "Stare down the barrel and center the crosshairs: Targeting the ex ante equity premium," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2003-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    15. George M. Constantinides, 2002. "Rational Asset Prices," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(4), pages 1567-1591, August.
    16. M. C. Freeman & I. R. Davidson, 1999. "Estimating the equity premium," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 236-246.
    17. Alain Abou & Georges Prat, 2009. "The dynamics of U.S. equity risk premia: lessons from professionals'view," Working Papers hal-04140869, HAL.
    18. Minh Hai Ngo & Marc Oliver Rieger & Shuonan Yuan, 2018. "The Fundamental Equity Premium and Ambiguity Aversion in an International Context," Risks, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-24, November.
    19. Milos Bozovic, 2015. "Equity Premium in Serbia: A Different Kind of Puzzle?," MIC 2015: Managing Sustainable Growth; Proceedings of the Joint International Conference, Portorož, Slovenia, 28–30 May 2015,, University of Primorska, Faculty of Management Koper.
    20. Shahid Ebrahim, M. & Mathur, Ike, 2001. "Investor heterogeneity, market segmentation, leverage and the equity premium puzzle," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(10), pages 1897-1919, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:eurjfi:v:5:y:1999:i:3:p:186-201. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REJF20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.