The Equity Premium

Eugene F. Fama and Kenneth French

Journal of Finance, 2002, vol. 57, issue 2, 637-659

Abstract: We estimate the equity premium using dividend and earnings growth rates to measure the expected rate of capital gain. Our estimates for 1951 to 2000, 2.55 percent and 4.32 percent, are much lower than the equity premium produced by the average stock return, 7.43 percent. Our evidence suggests that the high average return for 1951 to 2000 is due to a decline in discount rates that produces a large unexpected capital gain. Our main conclusion is that the average stock return of the last half‐century is a lot higher than expected.

Date: 2002
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (238)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6261.00437

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:57:y:2002:i:2:p:637-659

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.afajof.org/membership/join.asp

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Finance from American Finance Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().