IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3246.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Variance Decomposition for Stock Returns

Author

Listed:
  • John Y. Campbell

Abstract

This paper shows that unexpected stock returns must be associated with changes in expected future dividends or expected future returns A vector autoregressive method is used to break unexpected stock returns into these two components. In U.S. monthly data in 1927-88, one-third of the variance of unexpected returns is attributed to the variance of changing expected dividends, one-third to the variance of changing expected returns, and one-third to the covariance of the two components. Changing expected returns have a large effect on stock prices because they are persistent: a 1% innovation in the expected return is associated with a 4 or 5% capital loss. Changes in expected returns are negatively correlated with changes in expected dividends, increasing the stock market reaction to dividend news. In the period 1952-88, hanging expected. returns account for a larger fraction of stock return variation than they do in the period 1927-51.

Suggested Citation

  • John Y. Campbell, 1990. "A Variance Decomposition for Stock Returns," NBER Working Papers 3246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3246
    Note: ME
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3246.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Campbell, John Y. & Clarida, Richard H., 1987. "The dollar and real interest rates," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 103-139, January.
    2. Myung Jig Kim & Charles R. Nelson & Richard Startz, 1991. "Mean Reversion in Stock Prices? A Reappraisal of the Empirical Evidence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(3), pages 515-528.
    3. Campbell, John Y, 1990. "Measuring the Persistence of Expected Returns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 43-47, May.
    4. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    5. Litterman, Robert B & Weiss, Laurence M, 1985. "Money, Real Interest Rates, and Output: A Reinterpretation of Postwar U.S. Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(1), pages 129-156, January.
    6. Fama, Eugene F & French, Kenneth R, 1988. "Permanent and Temporary Components of Stock Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(2), pages 246-273, April.
    7. John Y. Campbell & Robert J. Shiller, 1988. "Stock Prices, Earnings and Expected Dividends," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 858, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    8. Campbell, John Y., 1987. "Stock returns and the term structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 373-399, June.
    9. John Y. Campbell, Robert J. Shiller, 1988. "The Dividend-Price Ratio and Expectations of Future Dividends and Discount Factors," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(3), pages 195-228.
    10. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1988. "Dividend yields and expected stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 3-25, October.
    11. David H. Cutler & James M. Poterba & Lawrence H. Summers, 1988. "What Moves Stock Prices?," Working papers 487, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    12. Shmuel Kandel & Robert F. Stambaugh, "undated". "Modeling Expected Stock Returns for Long and Short Horizons," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 42-88, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    13. repec:bla:jfinan:v:43:y:1988:i:3:p:661-76 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Keim, Donald B. & Stambaugh, Robert F., 1986. "Predicting returns in the stock and bond markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 357-390, December.
    15. Conrad, Jennifer & Kaul, Gautam, 1988. "Time-Variation in Expected Returns," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(4), pages 409-425, October.
    16. Froot, Kenneth A & Obstfeld, Maurice, 1991. "Intrinsic Bubbles: The Case of Stock Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1189-1214, December.
    17. Cecchetti, Stephen G & Lam, Pok-sang & Mark, Nelson C, 1990. "Mean Reversion in Equilibrium Asset Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 398-418, June.
    18. John Y. Campbell & Albert S. Kyle, 1993. "Smart Money, Noise Trading and Stock Price Behaviour," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 1-34.
    19. Andrew W. Lo, A. Craig MacKinlay, 1988. "Stock Market Prices do not Follow Random Walks: Evidence from a Simple Specification Test," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 41-66.
    20. Poterba, James M & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "The Persistence of Volatility and Stock Market Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 1142-1151, December.
    21. Poterba, James M. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1988. "Mean reversion in stock prices : Evidence and Implications," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 27-59, October.
    22. David M. Cutler & James M. Poterba & Lawrence H. Summers, 1991. "Speculative Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(3), pages 529-546.
    23. Hansen, Lars Peter & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1983. "Stochastic Consumption, Risk Aversion, and the Temporal Behavior of Asset Returns," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 249-265, April.
    24. Fama, Eugene F. & Schwert, G. William, 1977. "Asset returns and inflation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 115-146, November.
    25. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1989. "Business conditions and expected returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 23-49, November.
    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. Campbell, John Y & Ammer, John, 1993. "What Moves the Stock and Bond Markets? A Variance Decomposition for Long-Term Asset Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-37, March.
    2. Campbell, John Y., 2003. "Consumption-based asset pricing," 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 13, pages 803-887, Elsevier.
    3. John Y. Campbell & John Cochrane, 1999. "Force of Habit: A Consumption-Based Explanation of Aggregate Stock Market Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 205-251, April.
    4. Campbell, John Y, 1996. "Understanding Risk and Return," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(2), pages 298-345, April.
    5. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2013. "Understanding Asset Prices," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2013-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    6. J. Annaert & W. Van Hyfte, 2006. "Long-Horizon Mean Reversion for the Brussels Stock Exchange: Evidence for the 19th Century," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 06/376, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    7. Campbell, John Y. & Mei, Jianping, 1993. "Where Do Betas Come From? Asset Price Dynamics and the Sources of Systematic Risk," Scholarly Articles 3353757, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    8. Hardouvelis, Gikas A. & Kim, Dongcheol & Wizman, Thierry A., 1996. "Asset pricing models with and without consumption data: An empirical evaluation," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 267-301, September.
    9. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    10. Fernando Rubio, 2005. "Eficiencia De Mercado, Administracion De Carteras De Fondos Y Behavioural Finance," Finance 0503028, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 23 Jul 2005.
    11. Kim Kaivanto & Peng Zhang, 2019. "Investor Sentiment as a Predictor of Market Returns," Working Papers 268005798, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    12. Simon van Norden & Huntley Schaller, 2002. "Fads or bubbles?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 335-362.
    13. Campbell, John Y., 2001. "Why long horizons? A study of power against persistent alternatives," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(5), pages 459-491, December.
    14. Wayne E. Ferson & Sergei Sarkissian & Timothy T. Simin, 2003. "Spurious Regressions in Financial Economics?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1393-1413, August.
    15. Tim Bollerslev & Robert J. Hodrick, 1992. "Financial Market Efficiency Tests," NBER Working Papers 4108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Tim Bollerslev & George Tauchen & Hao Zhou, 2009. "Expected Stock Returns and Variance Risk Premia," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4463-4492, November.
    17. Liam A. Gallagher & Mark P. Taylor, 2002. "Permanent and Temporary Components of Stock Prices: Evidence from Assessing Macroeconomic Shocks," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(2), pages 345-362, October.
    18. Campbell, John Y, 1993. "Intertemporal Asset Pricing without Consumption Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 487-512, June.
    19. Stéphane Goutte & David Guerreiro & Bilel Sanhaji & Sophie Saglio & Julien Chevallier, 2019. "International Financial Markets," Post-Print halshs-02183053, HAL.
    20. Ang, Andrew & Liu, Jun, 2007. "Risk, return, and dividends," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 1-38, July.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:3246. 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://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.