IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed004/644.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Declining Equity Premium: What Role Does Macroeconomic Risk Play?

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Lettau
  • Sydney C. Ludvigson

Abstract

Aggregate stock prices, relative to virtually any indicator of fundamental value, soared to unprecedented levels in the 1990s. Even today, after the market declines since 2000, they remain well above historical norms. Why? We consider one particular explanation: a fall in macroeconomic risk, or the volatility of the aggregate economy. We estimate a two-state regime switching model for the volatility and mean of consumption growth, and find evidence of a shift to substantially lower consumption volatility at the beginning of the 1990s. We then show that there is a strong and statistically robust correlation between low macroeconomic volatility and high asset prices: the estimated posterior probability of being in a low volatility state explains 30 to 60 percent of the post-war variation in the log price-dividend ratio, depending on the measure of consumption analyzed. Next, we study a rational asset pricing model with regime switches in both the mean and standard deviation of consumption growth, where the probabilities of a regime change are calibrated to match estimates from post-war data. Plausible parameterizations of the model are found to account for a significant fraction of the run-up in asset valuation ratios observed in the late 1990s.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Lettau & Sydney C. Ludvigson, 2004. "The Declining Equity Premium: What Role Does Macroeconomic Risk Play?," 2004 Meeting Papers 644, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  • Handle: RePEc:red:sed004:644
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.nyu.edu/user/ludvigsons/rgs.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    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. Otrok, Christopher & Ravikumar, B. & Whiteman, Charles H., 2002. "Habit formation: a resolution of the equity premium puzzle?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1261-1288, September.
    3. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2001. "Disappearing Dividends: Changing Firm Characteristics Or Lower Propensity To Pay?," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 14(1), pages 67-79, March.
    4. Bonomo, Marco & Garcia, Rene, 1994. "Can a Well-Fitted Equilibrium Asset-Pricing Model Produce Mean Reversion?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(1), pages 19-29, Jan.-Marc.
    5. Weil, Philippe, 1989. "The equity premium puzzle and the risk-free rate puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 401-421, November.
    6. Lettau, Martin & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn, 2005. "Reconciling the Return Predictability Evidenc: In-Sample Forecasts, Out-of-Sample Forecasts, and Parameter Instability," CEPR Discussion Papers 5355, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Olivier J. Blanchard, 1993. "Movements in the Equity Premium," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 24(2), pages 75-138.
    8. Marco Cagetti & Lars Peter Hansen & Thomas Sargent & Noah Williams, 2002. "Robustness and Pricing with Uncertain Growth," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 363-404, March.
    9. Pastor, Lubos & Veronesi, Pietro, 2006. "Was there a Nasdaq bubble in the late 1990s?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 61-100, July.
    10. Martin Lettau & Sydney C. Ludvigson, 2004. "Understanding Trend and Cycle in Asset Values: Reevaluating the Wealth Effect on Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 276-299, March.
    11. Giovannini, Alberto, 1989. "Uncertainty and liquidity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 239-258, March.
    12. Campbell, John Y, 1991. "A Variance Decomposition for Stock Returns," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(405), pages 157-179, March.
    13. Bansal, Ravi & Khatchatrian, Varoujan & Yaron, Amir, 2005. "Interpretable asset markets?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 531-560, April.
    14. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 1993. "Consumption Growth, the Interest Rate and Aggregation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 631-649.
    15. John Heaton & Deborah Lucas, 2000. "Stock prices and fundamentals," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Apr.
    16. 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.
    17. Robert E. Hall, 2000. "E-Capital: The Link between the Stock Market and the Labor Market in the 1990s," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 31(2), pages 73-118.
    18. Larry G. Epstein & Stanley E. Zin, 2013. "Substitution, risk aversion and the temporal behavior of consumption and asset returns: A theoretical framework," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 12, pages 207-239, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    19. Calvet, Laurent & Gonzalez-Eiras, Martín & Sodini, Paolo, 2004. "Financial Innovation, Market Participation, and Asset Prices," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(3), pages 431-459, September.
    20. Romer, Christina D, 1989. "The Prewar Business Cycle Reconsidered: New Estimates of Gross National Product, 1869-1908," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 1-37, February.
    21. Margaret M. McConnell & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2000. "Output fluctuations in the United States: what has changed since the early 1980s?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    22. Martin Lettau & Sydney C. Ludvigson & Jessica A. Wachter, 2008. "The Declining Equity Premium: What Role Does Macroeconomic Risk Play?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1653-1687, July.
    23. Hung, Mao-Wei, 1994. "The Interaction between Nonexpected Utility and Asymmetric Market Fundamentals," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(1), pages 325-343, March.
    24. Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2002. "Limited Asset Market Participation and the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(4), pages 825-853, August.
    25. Barsky, Robert B, 1989. "Why Don't the Prices of Stocks and Bonds Move Together?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1132-1145, December.
    26. Lettau, Martin & Ludvigson, Sydney C., 2005. "Expected returns and expected dividend growth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 583-626, June.
    27. Veronesi, Pietro, 1999. "Stock Market Overreaction to Bad News in Good Times: A Rational Expectations Equilibrium Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(5), pages 975-1007.
    28. Bansal, Ravi & Lundblad, Christian, 2002. "Market efficiency, asset returns, and the size of the risk premium in global equity markets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 195-237, August.
    29. John Y. Campbell, 1986. "Bond and Stock Returns in a Simple Exchange Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(4), pages 785-803.
    30. Balke, Nathan S & Gordon, Robert J, 1989. "The Estimation of Prewar Gross National Product: Methodology and New Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 38-92, February.
    31. 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.
    32. repec:bla:jfinan:v:59:y:2004:i:4:p:1481-1509 is not listed on IDEAS
    33. Sydney Ludvigson, 1999. "Consumption And Credit: A Model Of Time-Varying Liquidity Constraints," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(3), pages 434-447, August.
    34. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "Has The U.S. Economy Become More Stable? A Bayesian Approach Based On A Markov-Switching Model Of The Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 608-616, November.
    35. Whitelaw, Robert F, 2000. "Stock Market Risk and Return: An Equilibrium Approach," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(3), pages 521-547.
    36. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    37. Abel, Andrew B., 1999. "Risk premia and term premia in general equilibrium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 3-33, February.
    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. Calvet, Laurent E. & Fisher, Adlai J., 2007. "Multifrequency news and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 178-212, October.
    2. Broer, Tobias & Kero, Afroditi, 2011. "Great Moderation or Great Mistake: Can rising confidence in low macro-risk explain the boom in asset prices?," CEPR Discussion Papers 8700, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. 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.
    4. Beeler, Jason & Campbell, John Y., 2012. "The Long-Run Risks Model and Aggregate Asset Prices: An Empirical Assessment," Critical Finance Review, now publishers, vol. 1(1), pages 141-182, January.
    5. Bekaert, Geert & Engstrom, Eric & Xing, Yuhang, 2009. "Risk, uncertainty, and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 59-82, January.
    6. Massimo Guidolin, 2013. "Markov switching models in asset pricing research," Chapters, in: Adrian R. Bell & Chris Brooks & Marcel Prokopczuk (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Finance, chapter 1, pages 3-44, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Yiqun Mou & Lars A. Lochstoer & Michael Johannes, 2011. "Learning about Consumption Dynamics," 2011 Meeting Papers 306, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Anisha Ghosh & George M. Constantinides, 2014. "Prices, Consumption, and Dividends Over the Business Cycle: A Tale of Two Regimes," NBER Working Papers 20678, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Ludvigson, Sydney C., 2013. "Advances in Consumption-Based Asset Pricing: Empirical Tests," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 799-906, Elsevier.
    10. Stefano d’Addona & Christos Giannikos, 2014. "Asset pricing and the role of macroeconomic volatility," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 197-215, May.
    11. Daniel Andrei & Bruce Carlin & Michael Hasler, 2019. "Asset Pricing with Disagreement and Uncertainty About the Length of Business Cycles," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 2900-2923, June.
    12. Geert Bekaert & Eric Engstrom, 2009. "Asset Return Dynamics under Bad Environment Good Environment Fundamentals," NBER Working Papers 15222, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Nengjiu Ju & Jianjun Miao, 2012. "Ambiguity, Learning, and Asset Returns," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(2), pages 559-591, March.
    14. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    15. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    16. Stefano d’Addona & Christos Giannikos, 2014. "Asset pricing and the role of macroeconomic volatility," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 197-215, May.
    17. Brevik, Frode & d’Addona, Stefano, 2010. "Information Quality and Stock Returns Revisited," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(6), pages 1419-1446, December.
    18. Emi Nakamura & Dmitriy Sergeyev & Jón Steinsson, 2017. "Growth-Rate and Uncertainty Shocks in Consumption: Cross-Country Evidence," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-39, January.
    19. Ravi Bansal, 2007. "Long-run risks and financial markets," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 89(Jul), pages 283-300.
    20. Geoffrey J. Warren, 2008. "Implications for Asset Pricing Puzzles of a Roll‐over Assumption for the Risk‐Free Asset," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 8(3‐4), pages 125-157, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Equity Premium; Macro Volatility;

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    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:red:sed004:644. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.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.