Most anomalies fail to hold up to currently acceptable standards for empirical finance. With microcaps mitigated via NYSE breakpoints and value-weighted returns, 65% of the 452 anomalies in our extensive data library, including 96% of the trading frictions category, cannot clear the single test hurdle of the absolute t-value of 1.96. Imposing the higher multiple test hurdle of 2.78 at the 5% significance level raises the failure rate to 82%. Even for replicated anomalies, their economic magnitudes are much smaller than originally reported. In all, capital markets are more efficient than previously recognized. Received June 12, 2017; editorial decision October 29, 2018 by Editor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh.

A detailed treatment of aggregation and capital heterogeneity substantially improves the performance of the investment CAPM. Firm-level predicted returns are constructed from firm-level accounting variables and aggregated to the portfolio level to match with portfolio-level stock returns. Working capital forms a separate productive input besides physical capital. The model simultaneously fits the value, momentum, investment, and profitability premiums and partially explains positive stock-fundamental return correlations, the procyclical and short-term dynamics of the momentum and profitability premiums, and the countercyclical and long-term dynamics of the value and investment premiums. However, the model falls short in explaining momentum crashes. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online..

We present a new data set for 74 economies over 1990–2016 on domestic bank credit distinguishing between four categories: household mortgages, household consumption credit, loans to non-bank financial institutions, and loans to non-financial business. We offer a description of sources and data collection methods and a comparison with similar data sets. We document the key data trends including a shift in bank credit allocation away from business lending. The literature suggests that this ‘debt shift’ has substantial consequences for growth, income distribution and macroeconomic resilience, which motivates the construction of a new data set. We apply the data to analyze the effect of an increase in mortgage lending flows on business credit flows. We identify several theoretical transmission channels which involve collateral and bank balance sheet effects and wealth effects on consumption. The impact of mortgage credit expansion on business credit growth is found to be positive in advanced economies and negative in emerging and developing economies.