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Journal of Political Economy Vol. 112 No. 1 2004

Understanding Predictability

Lior Menzly1,2; Tano Santos3; Pietro Veronesi3,4

1 University of Southern California · 2 California Southern University · 3 National Bureau of Economic Research · 4 Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract

We propose a general equilibrium model with multiple securities in which investors' risk preferences and expectations of dividend growth are time-varying. While time-varying risk preferences induce the standard positive relation between the dividend yield and expected returns, time-varying expected dividend growth induces a negative relation between them. These offsetting effects reduce the ability of the dividend yield to forecast returns and eliminate its ability to forecast dividend growth, as observed in the data. The model links the predictability of returns to that of dividend growth, suggesting specific changes to standard linear predictive regressions for both. The model's predictions are confirmed empirically.

DOI
10.1086/379934
Volume
112
Issue
1
Pages
1-47
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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