According to the dynamic version of the Gordon growth model, the long-run expected return on stocks, stock yield, is the sum of the dividend yield on stocks plus some weighted average of expected future growth rates in dividends. We construct a measure of stock yield based on sell-side analysts'...

We revisit La Porta's (1996) finding that returns on stocks with the most optimistic analyst long term earnings growth forecasts are substantially lower than those for stocks with the most pessimistic forecasts. We document that this finding still holds, and present several further facts about...

We provide a model for why high beta assets are more prone to speculative overpricing than low beta ones. When investors disagree about the common factor of cash-flows, high beta assets are more sensitive to this macro-disagreement and experience a greater divergence-of-opinion about their...

Does information asymmetry affect the cross-section of expected stock returns? We explore this question using representative portfolio holdings data from the Shanghai Stock Exchange. We show that institutional investors have a strong information advantage, and that past aggressiveness of...

This paper characterizes the forces that determine time-variation in expected international asset returns. We offer a number of innovations. By using the latent factor technique, we do not have to prespecify the sources of risk. We solve for the latent premiums and characterize their...

This study explores multivariate methods for investment analysis based on a sample of return histories that differ in length across assets. The longer histories provide greater information about moments of returns, not only for the longer-history assets, but for the shorter-history assets as...

Human beings want to believe that good outcomes in the future are more likely, but also want to make good decisions that increase average outcomes in the future. We consider a general equilibrium model with complete markets and show that when investors hold beliefs that optimally balance these...

We study the rationality of individual and consensus professional forecasts of macroeconomic and financial variables using the methodology of Coibion and Gorodnichenko (2015), which examines predictability of forecast errors from forecast revisions. We report two key findings: forecasters...

We present a framework for analyzing “model persuasion.” Persuaders influence receivers' beliefs by proposing models (likelihood functions) that specify how to organize past data (e.g., on investment performance) to make predictions (e.g., about future returns). Receivers are assumed to find...