The links between interest rates, cost of capital, hurdle rates, and capital allocation have been remarkably weak during the last few years. For instance, whereas the current yield on the World Government Bond Index is a paltry 1.2%, survey evidence suggests that the median reported investment...

We examine active retail mutual funds and institutional products with a mandate to invest ininternational equity markets between 1991 and 2009. Using global and regional factor models,we find no reliable evidence of alphas in the aggregate or on average. The right tail of thedistribution...

I investigate the profitability and investment premium in stock returns using hand-collected data from Moody's Manuals for 1940-1963. Controlling for value, the profitability premium emerges as important in this period. In contrast, there no reliable relation between investment and returns,...