A high growth rate in labor hours per worker signals low future stock market returns and high future hiring. In the presence of an increase in the number of labor hours per worker, hiring becomes less responsive to the future discount rate. The growth rate in the number of labor hours per worker...

Production decisions provide a credible indicator of future costs of capital perceived by corporate insiders and so may forecast future stock returns. We find that, under decreasing returns to scale, investment returns correlate imperfectly with stock returns and that higher profitability and...