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?

This paper proposes a habit formation model that explains the failure of the expectations hypothesis documented by Campbell and Shiller (1991) and Fama and Bliss (1987).(...)

As risk aversion approaches infinity, the portfolio of an investor with utility over consumption at time T is shown to converge to the portfolio consisting entirely of a bond maturing at time T. Previous work on bond allocation requires a specific model for equities, the term structure, and the...

Asset market values react to economic news and policychanges, and consumers react to changes in asset marketvalues. The consumption-wealth channel of monetary policyspells out this mechanism: changes in monetary policy affectasset values, which in turn affect consumer spending onnondurable goods...

We investigate a consumption-based present value relation that is a function of future dividend growth. Using data on aggregate consumption and measures of the dividend payments from aggregate wealth, we show that changing forecasts of dividend growth are an important feature of the post-war...