IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/11833.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rents, Technical Change, and Risk Premia: Accounting for Secular Trends in Interest Rates, Returns to Capital, Earnings Yields

Author

Listed:
  • Farhi, Emmanuel
  • Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier
  • Caballero, Ricardo

Abstract

The secular decline in safe interest rates since the early 1980s has been the subject of considerable attention. In this short paper, we argue that it is important to consider the evolution of safe real rates in conjunction with three other first-order macroeconomic stylized facts: the relative constancy of the real return to productive capital, the decline in the labor share, and the decline and subsequent stabilization of the earnings yield. Through the lens of a simple accounting framework, these four facts offer suggestive insights into the economic forces that might be at work.

Suggested Citation

  • Farhi, Emmanuel & Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier & Caballero, Ricardo, 2017. "Rents, Technical Change, and Risk Premia: Accounting for Secular Trends in Interest Rates, Returns to Capital, Earnings Yields," CEPR Discussion Papers 11833, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11833
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP11833
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fernando M. Duarte & Carlo Rosa, 2015. "The equity risk premium: a review of models," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue 2, pages 39-57.
    2. David Autor & David Dorn & Lawrence F. Katz & Christina Patterson & John Van Reenen, 2017. "Concentrating on the Fall of the Labor Share," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 180-185, May.
    3. Paul Gomme & B. Ravikumar & Peter Rupert, 2011. "The Return to Capital and the Business Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 262-278, April.
    4. David López-Salido & Jeremy C. Stein & Egon Zakrajšek, 2017. "Credit-Market Sentiment and the Business Cycle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(3), pages 1373-1426.
    5. Ricardo J Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi, 2018. "The Safety Trap," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(1), pages 223-274.
    6. Kevin Daly, 2016. "A Secular Increase in the Equity Risk Premium," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 179-200, June.
    7. Ricardo J. Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, 2008. "An Equilibrium Model of "Global Imbalances" and Low Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 358-393, March.
    8. John Y. Campbell, 2007. "Estimating the Equity Premium," NBER Working Papers 13423, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Dongya Koh & Raül Santaeulàlia‐Llopis & Yu Zheng, 2020. "Labor Share Decline and Intellectual Property Products Capital," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2609-2628, November.
    10. repec:cdl:ciders:qt7xc0g8mm is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Ricardo J. Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, 2008. "An Equilibrium Model of "Global Imbalances" and Low Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 358-393, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ricardo J. Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, 2017. "Rents, Technical Change, and Risk Premia Accounting for Secular Trends in Interest Rates, Returns on Capital, Earning Yields, and Factor Shares," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 614-620, May.
    2. Marx, Magali & Mojon, Benoît & Velde, François R., 2021. "Why have interest rates fallen far below the return on capital?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(S), pages 57-76.
    3. Emmanuel Farhi & Francois Gourio, 2018. "Accounting for Macro-Finance Trends: Market Power, Intangibles, and Risk Premia," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 49(2 (Fall)), pages 147-250.
    4. Loukas Karabarbounis & Brent Neiman, 2019. "Accounting for Factorless Income," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 167-228.
    5. Glick, Reuven, 2020. "r* and the global economy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    6. Ricardo J. Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, 2017. "The Safe Assets Shortage Conundrum," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(3), pages 29-46, Summer.
    7. Satyajit Chatterjee & Burcu Eyigungor, 2023. "The Firm Size-Leverage Relationship and Its Implications for Entry and Business Concentration," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 48, pages 132-157, April.
    8. Maya Eden, 2019. "International Liquidity Rents," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 31, pages 147-159, January.
    9. Satyajit Chatterjee & Burcu Eyigungor, 2020. "The Firm Size and Leverage Relationship and Its Implications for Entry and Business Concentration," Working Papers 20-29, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    10. Altermatt, Lukas, 2019. "Savings, asset scarcity, and monetary policy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 329-359.
    11. Luis Bauluz & Filip Novokmet & Moritz Schularick, 2022. "The Anatomy of the Global Saving Glut," Working Papers halshs-03693216, HAL.
    12. Eggertsson, Gauti B. & Robbins, Jacob A. & Wold, Ella Getz, 2021. "Kaldor and Piketty’s facts: The rise of monopoly power in the United States," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(S), pages 19-38.
    13. Rey, Hélène & Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier, 2016. "Real Interest Rates, Imbalances and the Curse of Regional Safe Asset Providers at the Zero Lower Bound," CEPR Discussion Papers 11503, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Satyajit Chatterjee & Burcu Eyigungor, 2019. "The Firm Size and Leverage Relationship and Its Implications for Entry and Concentration in a Low Interest Rate World," Working Papers 19-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    15. Grechyna, Daryna, 2018. "Firm size, bank size, and financial development," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 19-37.
    16. Felipe S. Iachan & Plamen T. Nenov & Alp Simsek, 2021. "The Choice Channel of Financial Innovation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 333-372, April.
    17. Sushant Acharya & Keshav Dogra, 2022. "The Side Effects of Safe Asset Creation," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 581-625.
    18. repec:cbh:journl:v:14:y:2015:i:1:p:111-138 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Ly Dai Hung & Bui Thi Hai Anh & Vo Tri Thanh, 2022. "International Debts Flows," Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 13(02), pages 1-22, June.
    20. Ricardo J Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, 2021. "Global Imbalances and Policy Wars at the Zero Lower Bound [“Safe Assets”]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(6), pages 2570-2621.
    21. Victor Filipe Martins da Rocha & Toan Phan & Yiannis Vailakis, 2019. "Debt Limits and Credit Bubbles in General Equilibrium," Post-Print hal-02429759, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:cpr:ceprdp:11833. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.