Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T19:27:38.841Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A NOTE ON THE FORWARD AND THE EQUITY PREMIUM PUZZLES: TWO SYMPTOMS OF THE SAME ILLNESS?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2013

Carlos E. da Costa
Affiliation:
FGV/EPGE
João V. Issler*
Affiliation:
FGV/EPGE
Paulo F. Matos
Affiliation:
UFC/CAEN
*
Address correspondence to: João V. Issler, Escola de Pós-Graduação em Economica da Fundação Getulio Vargas, Praia de Botafogo, 190 11o andar, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 22250-900, Brazil; e-mail: [email protected].

Abstract

We build a stochastic discount factor—SDF—using U.S. domestic financial data only, and provide evidence that it accounts for stylized facts about foreign markets that escape SDFs generated by consumption-based models. When our SDF is interpreted as the projection of the pricing kernel from a fully specified model in the space of returns, our results indicate that a model that accounts for the behavior of domestic assets goes a long way toward accounting for the behavior of foreign asset prices. In our tests, we address predictability, a defining feature of the forward premium puzzle—FPP—by using instruments that are known to forecast excess returns in the moment restrictions associated with Euler equations both in the equity and in the foreign markets.

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Brandt, Michael W., Cochrane, John H., and Santa-Clara, Pedro (2006) International risk sharing is better than you think, or exchange rates are too smooth. Journal of Monetary Economics 53, 671698.Google Scholar
Campbell, John Y. and Shiller, Robert J. (1988) The dividend–price ratio and the expectations of future dividends and discount factors. Review of Financial Studies 1, 195228.Google Scholar
Cochrane, John H. (1991) Production-based asset pricing and the link between stock returns and economic fluctuations. Econometrica 46, 207234.Google Scholar
Cochrane, John H. (2001) Asset Pricing. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cochrane, John H. (2008) The dog that did not bark: A defense of return predictability. Review of Financial Studies 21 (4), 15331575.Google Scholar
Connor, Gregory and Robert Korajczyk (1993) A test for the number of factors in an approximate factor structure. Journal of Finance 48, 12631291.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
da Costa, Carlos E., Filho, Jaime J., and Matos, Paulo F. (2010) Forward-Premium Puzzle: Is It Time to Abandon the Usual Regression? VI Portuguese Financial Network, Azores Island.Google Scholar
Engel, Charles (1996) The forward discount anomaly and the risk premium: A survey of recent evidence. Journal of Empirical Finance 3 (2), 123192.Google Scholar
Fama, Eugene F. (1984) Term premiums in bond returns. Journal of Financial Economics 13 (4), 529546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fama, Eugene F. and French, Kenneth R. (1988) Dividend yields and expected stock returns. Journal of Financial Economics 22 (1), 325.Google Scholar
Fama, Eugene F. and French, Kenneth R. (1989) Business conditions and expected returns on stocks and bonds. Journal of Financial Economics 25 (1), 2349.Google Scholar
Fama, Eugene F. and French, Kenneth R. (1993) Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds. Journal of Financial Economics 33 (1), 356.Google Scholar
Frankel, Jeffrey A. (1979) The diversifiability of exchange risk. Journal of International Economics 9 (3), 379393.Google Scholar
Hansen, Lars P. (1982) Large sample properties of generalized method of moments estimators. Econometrica 50 (5), 10291054.Google Scholar
Hansen, Lars P. and Jagannathan, Ravi (1991) Implications of security market data for models of dynamic economies. Journal of Political Economy 99 (2), 225262.Google Scholar
Hansen, Lars P. and Jagannathan, Ravi (1997) Assessing specification errors in stochastic discount factor models. Journal of Finance 52 (2), 557590.Google Scholar
Hansen, Lars P. and Richard, Scott F. (1987) The role of conditioning information in deducing testable restrictions implied by dynamic asset pricing models. Econometrica 55 (3), 587613.Google Scholar
Hansen, Lars P. and Singleton, Kenneth (1982) Generalized instrumental variables estimation of nonlinear expectations models. Econometrica 50 (5), 12691286.Google Scholar
Hansen, Lars P. and Singleton, Kenneth (1984) Erratum of the article: Generalized instrumental variables estimation of nonlinear expectations models. Econometrica 52 (1), 267268.Google Scholar
Harrison, J. Michael and Kreps, David M. (1979) Martingales and arbitrage in multiperiod securities markets. Journal of Economic Theory 20 (3), 381408.Google Scholar
Hodrick, Robert J. (1989) U.S. international capital flows: Perspectives from rational maximizing models. Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy 30 (1), 231288.Google Scholar
Iwata, Shigeru and Wu, Shu (2006) Macroeconomic shocks and the foreign exchange risk premia. Macroeconomic Dynamics 10 (4), 439466.Google Scholar
Kim, Sunghyun Henry and Kose, M. Ayhan (2003) Dynamics of open-economy business-cycle models: Role of the discount factor. Macroeconomic Dynamics 7 (2), 263290.Google Scholar
Lustig, Hanno and Verdelhan, Adrien (2006) Investing in foreign currency is like betting on your intertemporal marginal rate of substitution. Journal of the European Economic Association 4 (2–3), 644655.Google Scholar
Lustig, Hanno and Verdelhan, Adrien (2007) The cross section of foreign currency risk premia and consumption growth risk. American Economic Review 97 (1), 89117.Google Scholar
Mark, Nelson C. (1985) On time varying risk premiums in the foreign exchange market: An econometric analysis. Journal of Monetary Economics 16 (2), 318.Google Scholar
Mehra, Rajnish and Prescott, Edward C. (1985) The equity risk premium: A puzzle. Journal of Monetary Economics 15 (2), 145161.Google Scholar
Modjtahedi, Bagher (1991) Multiple maturities and time-varying risk premia in forward exchange markets: An econometric analysis. Journal of International Economics 30 (1–2), 6986.Google Scholar
Mundell, Robert A. (1963) Capital mobility and stabilization policy under fixed and flexible exchange rates. Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 29 (4), 475485.Google Scholar
Newey, Whitney K. and West, Kenneth D. (1987) A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix. Econometrica 55 (3), 703708.Google Scholar
Phillips, Peter C. B. and Perron, Pierre (1988) Testing for a unit root in time series regression. Biometrika 75 (2), 335346.Google Scholar
Rossi, Barbara (2006) Are exchange rates really random walks? Some evidence robust to parameter instability. Macroeconomic Dynamics 10 (1), 2038.Google Scholar
Thoenissen, Christoph (2011) Exchange rate dynamics, asset market structure and the role of the trade elasticity. Macroecomic Dynamics 15 (1), 119143.Google Scholar
White, Halbert (1980) A heteroskedasticity-consistent covariance matrix estimator and a direct test for heteroskedasticity. Econometrica 48 (4), 817838.Google Scholar