A Variance Decomposition for Stock Returns

John Campbell

No 3246, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper shows that unexpected stock returns must be associated with changes in expected future dividends or expected future returns A vector autoregressive method is used to break unexpected stock returns into these two components. In U.S. monthly data in 1927-88, one-third of the variance of unexpected returns is attributed to the variance of changing expected dividends, one-third to the variance of changing expected returns, and one-third to the covariance of the two components. Changing expected returns have a large effect on stock prices because they are persistent: a 1% innovation in the expected return is associated with a 4 or 5% capital loss. Changes in expected returns are negatively correlated with changes in expected dividends, increasing the stock market reaction to dividend news. In the period 1952-88, hanging expected. returns account for a larger fraction of stock return variation than they do in the period 1927-51.

Date: 1990-01
Note: ME
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (326)

Published as The Economic Journal, Vol. 101, No. 405, pp. 157-179, (March 1991).

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Journal Article: A Variance Decomposition for Stock Returns (1991)
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