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A Comprehensive Look at The Empirical Performance of Equity Premium Prediction

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  • Ivo Welch
  • Amit Goyal

Abstract

Our article comprehensively reexamines the performance of variables that have been suggested by the academic literature to be good predictors of the equity premium. We find that by and large, these models have predicted poorly both in-sample (IS) and out-of-sample (OOS) for 30 years now; these models seem unstable, as diagnosed by their out-of-sample predictions and other statistics; and these models would not have helped an investor with access only to available information to profitably time the market. The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org., Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Ivo Welch & Amit Goyal, 2008. "A Comprehensive Look at The Empirical Performance of Equity Premium Prediction," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(4), pages 1455-1508, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:21:y:2008:i:4:p:1455-1508
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    JEL classification:

    • G1 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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