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Equity Premium Puzzle or Faulty Economic Modelling?

Author

Listed:
  • Abootaleb Shirvani
  • Stoyan V. Stoyanov
  • Frank J. Fabozzi
  • Svetlozar T. Rachev

Abstract

In this paper, we revisit the equity premium puzzle reported in 1985 by Mehra and Prescott. We show that the large equity premium that they report can be explained by choosing a more appropriate distribution for the return data. We demonstrate that the high-risk aversion value observed by Mehra and Prescott may be attributable to the problem of fitting a proper distribution to the historical returns and partly caused by poorly fitting the tail of the return distribution. We describe a new distribution that better fits the return distribution and when used to describe historical returns can explain the large equity risk premium and thereby explains the puzzle.

Suggested Citation

  • Abootaleb Shirvani & Stoyan V. Stoyanov & Frank J. Fabozzi & Svetlozar T. Rachev, 2019. "Equity Premium Puzzle or Faulty Economic Modelling?," Papers 1909.13019, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1909.13019
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    2. Samarjit Das & Nityananda Sarkar, 2010. "Is the relative risk aversion parameter constant over time? A multi-country study," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 605-617, June.
    3. Pindyck, Robert S, 1988. "Risk Aversion and Determinants of Stock Market Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(2), pages 183-190, May.
    4. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 73-92.
    5. Pierre‐André Chiappori & Monica Paiella, 2011. "Relative Risk Aversion Is Constant: Evidence From Panel Data," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(6), pages 1021-1052, December.
    6. Diebold, Francis X & Gunther, Todd A & Tay, Anthony S, 1998. "Evaluating Density Forecasts with Applications to Financial Risk Management," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 863-883, November.
    7. French, Kenneth R. & Schwert, G. William & Stambaugh, Robert F., 1987. "Expected stock returns and volatility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 3-29, September.
    8. Friend, Irwin & Blume, Marshall E, 1975. "The Demand for Risky Assets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(5), pages 900-922, December.
    9. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 2003. "The equity premium in retrospect," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 889-938, Elsevier.
    10. 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.
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    Cited by:

    1. Safoora Zarei & Ali R. Fallahi, 2019. "Pay-As-You-Drive Insurance Pricing Model," Papers 1912.09273, arXiv.org.
    2. Spackman, Michael, 2021. "Social discounting and the equity premium," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111488, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Łukowski, Michał & Gemra, Kamil & Maruszewski, Janusz & Śliwiński, Paweł & Zygmanowski, Piotr, 2020. "Equity premium puzzle — Evidence from Poland," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C).

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