IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1833.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Dividend Innovations and Stock Price Volatility

Author

Listed:
  • Kenneth D. West

Abstract

This paper establishes an inequality that may be used to test the null hypothesis that a stock price equals the expected present discounted value of its dividend stream, with a constant discount rate. The inequality states that if this hypothesis is true, the variance of the innovation in the stock price is bounded above by a certain function of the variance in the innovation in the dividend. The bound is valid even if prices and dividends are nonstationary.The inequality is used to test the null hypothesis, for some long term annual U.S. stock price data. The null is decisively rejected, with the stock price innovation variance exceeding its theoretical upper bound by a factor of as much as twenty. The rejection is highly significant statistically. Regression diagnostics and some informal analysis suggest that the results are more consistent with there being speculative bubbles in the U.S. stock market than with a failure of the rational expectations or constant discount rate hypothesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Kenneth D. West, 1986. "Dividend Innovations and Stock Price Volatility," NBER Working Papers 1833, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1833
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1833.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Flavin, Marjorie A, 1983. "Excess Volatility in the Financial Markets: A Reassessment of the Empirical Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(6), pages 929-956, December.
    2. Hansen, Lars Peter, 1982. "Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1029-1054, July.
    3. West, Kenneth D, 1988. "Dividend Innovations and Stock Price Volatility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(1), pages 37-61, January.
    4. Robert J. Shiller, 1984. "Stock Prices and Social Dynamics," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 15(2), pages 457-510.
    5. West, Kenneth D., 1987. "A standard monetary model and the variability of the deutschemark-dollar exchange rate," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-2), pages 57-76, August.
    6. Hansen, Lars Peter & Sargent, Thomas J., 1980. "Formulating and estimating dynamic linear rational expectations models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 7-46, May.
    7. Shiller, Robert J, 1981. "The Use of Volatility Measures in Assessing Market Efficiency," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(2), pages 291-304, May.
    8. Shiller, Robert J, 1981. "Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 421-436, June.
    9. Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "Does the Stock Market Rationally Reflect Fundamental Values?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 591-601, July.
    10. Marsh, Terry A & Merton, Robert C, 1986. "Dividend Variability and Variance Bounds Tests for the Rationality ofStock Market Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 483-498, June.
    11. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    12. Kenneth D. West, 1987. "A Specification Test for Speculative Bubbles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(3), pages 553-580.
    13. Adrian R Pagan & Anthony D Hall, 1983. "Diagnostic tests as residual analysis," Published Paper Series 1983-1, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney.
    14. Kleidon, Allan W, 1986. "Variance Bounds Tests and Stock Price Valuation Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 953-1001, October.
    15. LeRoy, Stephen F & Porter, Richard D, 1981. "The Present-Value Relation: Tests Based on Implied Variance Bounds," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(3), pages 555-574, May.
    16. Hansen, Lars Peter & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1982. "Generalized Instrumental Variables Estimation of Nonlinear Rational Expectations Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1269-1286, September.
    17. LeRoy, Stephen F, 1984. "Efficiency and the Variability of Asset Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(2), pages 183-187, May.
    18. McCallum, Bennett T, 1976. "Rational Expectations and the Natural Rate Hypothesis: Some Consistent Estimates," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(1), pages 43-52, January.
    19. Grossman, Sanford J & Shiller, Robert J, 1981. "The Determinants of the Variability of Stock Market Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(2), pages 222-227, May.
    20. Behzad T. Diba & Herschel I. Grossman, 1985. "The Impossibility of Rational Bubbles," NBER Working Papers 1615, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Ackley, Gardner, 1983. "Commodities and Capital: Prices and Quantities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(1), pages 1-16, March.
    22. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1983. "The Production and Inventory Behavior of the American Automobile Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(3), pages 365-400, June.
    23. West, Kenneth D., 1988. "The insensitivity of consumption to news about income," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 17-33, January.
    24. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1978. "Asset Prices in an Exchange Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1429-1445, November.
    25. Tirole, Jean, 1985. "Asset Bubbles and Overlapping Generations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1499-1528, November.
    26. Robert P. Flood & Robert J. Hodrick & Paul Kaplan, 1986. "An Evaluation of Recent Evidence on Stock Market Bubbles," NBER Working Papers 1971, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tim Bollerslev & Robert J. Hodrick, 1992. "Financial Market Efficiency Tests," NBER Working Papers 4108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2013. "Understanding Asset Prices," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2013-1, Nobel Prize Committee.
    3. Kenneth D. West, 1987. "A Specification Test for Speculative Bubbles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(3), pages 553-580.
    4. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & Matthew D. Shapiro, 1991. "Stock Market Forecastability and Volatility: A Statistical Appraisal," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(3), pages 455-477.
    5. West, Kenneth D., 1987. "A standard monetary model and the variability of the deutschemark-dollar exchange rate," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(1-2), pages 57-76, August.
    6. Refet S. Gürkaynak, 2008. "Econometric Tests Of Asset Price Bubbles: Taking Stock," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 166-186, February.
    7. John Y. Campbell, 2000. "Asset Pricing at the Millennium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1515-1567, August.
    8. Robert P. Flood & Robert J. Hodrick, 1989. "Testable Implications of Indeterminacies in Models with Rational Expectations," NBER Working Papers 2903, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Enrique Sentana, 1993. "The econometrics of the stock market I: rationality tests," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 17(3), pages 401-420, September.
    10. Froot, Kenneth A & Obstfeld, Maurice, 1991. "Intrinsic Bubbles: The Case of Stock Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1189-1214, December.
    11. Akdeniz, Levent & Salih, Aslıhan Altay & Ok, Süleyman Tuluğ, 2007. "Are stock prices too volatile to be justified by the dividend discount model?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 376(C), pages 433-444.
    12. Flood, Robert P & Hodrick, Robert J, 1986. "Asset Price Volatility, Bubbles, and Process Switching," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(4), pages 831-842, September.
    13. Kin-Boon Tang & Shao-Jye Wong & Shih-Kuei Lin & Szu-Lang Liao, 2020. "Excess volatility and market efficiency in government bond markets: the ASEAN-5 context," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(2), pages 154-165, March.
    14. Yadav, Pradeep K., 1992. "Event studies based on volatility of returns and trading volume: A review," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 157-184.
    15. B. Ravikumar & Enchuan Shao, 2005. "Search Frictions and Asset Price Volatility," 2005 Meeting Papers 227, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Behzad T. Diba & Herschel I. Grossman, 1985. "Rational Bubbles in Stock Prices?," NBER Working Papers 1779, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Cochrane, John H, 1992. "Explaining the Variance of Price-Dividend Ratios," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(2), pages 243-280.
    18. Franklin Allen & Gary B. Gorton, "undated". "Rational Finite Bubbles," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 41-88, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    19. Pagan, Adrian, 1996. "The econometrics of financial markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 15-102, May.
    20. Drobyshevsky Sergey & Narkevich Sergey & E. Pikulina & D. Polevoy, 2009. "Analysis Of a Possible Bubble On the Russian Real Estate Market," Research Paper Series, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, issue 128.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1833. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.