Edited by Rajnish Mehra, this volume focuses on the equity risk premium puzzle, a term coined by Mehra and Prescott in 1985 which encompasses a number of empirical regularities in the prices of capital assets that are at odds with the predictions of standard economic theory.

This book aims to create a strong understanding of the empirical basis for the equity risk premium. Through the research and anaylsis of two scholars who are experts in this field, this volume presents the key issues that are paramount to investors, including whether or not to use historical data as a method of equity investing, and can the equity premium reflect changes in fundamental values and cash flows of the market.

Das Thema Risikoprämie für Aktien (Equity Risk Premium) wird hier zum ersten Mal verständlich erklärt. Die Risikoprämie für Aktien stellt einen Renditeausgleich dar für das erhöhte Risiko, das ein Anleger bei der Investition in Aktien eingeht, im Vergleich zu einer Investition in risikofreie Staatsanleihen. Die Risikoprämie ist zwar von der Theorie her einfach, jedoch in der Praxis ein sehr komplexes Phänomen. Für Finanzentscheidungen ist es von größter Bedeutung, daß man das Prinzip der Risikoprämie versteht und es anwenden kann. Cornell erläutert das Thema Schritt für Schritt sehr anschaulich und ohne terminologischen Ballast. Zunächst wird die Risikoprämie im Zusammenhang mit der Geschichte des Aktienmarktes betrachtet. Der Haussemarkt der 90er dient dabei als Fallstudie. Cornell zeigt, welche Rückschlüsse man durch die Analyse der Risikoprämie im historischen Verlauf für den Aktienmarkt ziehen kann, z.B. ob Aktienkurse steigen oder fallen oder ob sich der Aktienmarkt verändert. Vorausschauende Schätzungen der Risikoprämie werden anhand verschiedener konkurrierender Modelle analysiert, wobei die Vorzüge der jeweiligen Methode mitbewertet werden. 'Equity Risk Premium' ist das erste Buch, das dieses wichtige Prinzip der Risiko-Nutzen-Analyse erschöpfend behandelt. Es vermittelt einen tiefen Einblick und deckt alle Grundlagen ab, damit Investoren fundierte Finanzentscheidungen treffen können. Ein absolutes Muß für institutionelle Anleger, Geldmanager und Finanzvorstände, die auf eine fundierte Marktanalyse zurückgreifen müssen. (06/99)

Investment pioneer Len Zacks presents the latest academic research on how to beat the market using equity anomalies The Handbook of Equity Market Anomalies organizes and summarizes research carried out by hundreds of finance and accounting professors over the last twenty years to identify and measure equity market inefficiencies and provides self-directed individual investors with a framework for incorporating the results of this research into their own investment processes. Edited by Len Zacks, CEO of Zacks Investment Research, and written by leading professors who have performed groundbreaking research on specific anomalies, this book succinctly summarizes the most important anomalies that savvy investors have used for decades to beat the market. Some of the anomalies addressed include the accrual anomaly, net stock anomalies, fundamental anomalies, estimate revisions, changes in and levels of broker recommendations, earnings-per-share surprises, insider trading, price momentum and technical analysis, value and size anomalies, and several seasonal anomalies. This reliable resource also provides insights on how to best use the various anomalies in both market neutral and in long investor portfolios. A treasure trove of investment research and wisdom, the book will save you literally thousands of hours by distilling the essence of twenty years of academic research into eleven clear chapters and providing the framework and conviction to develop market-beating strategies. Strips the academic jargon from the research and highlights the actual returns generated by the anomalies, and documented in the academic literature Provides a theoretical framework within which to understand the concepts of risk adjusted returns and market inefficiencies Anomalies are selected by Len Zacks, a pioneer in the field of investing As the founder of Zacks Investment Research, Len Zacks pioneered the concept of the earnings-per-share surprise in 1982 and developed the Zacks Rank, one of the first anomaly-based stock selection tools. Today, his firm manages U.S. equities for individual and institutional investors and provides investment software and investment data to all types of investors. Now, with his new book, he shows you what it takes to build a quant process to outperform an index based on academically documented market inefficiencies and anomalies.

Research into the equity risk premium, often considered the most important number in finance, falls into three broad groupings. First, researchers have measured the margin by which equity total returns have exceeded fixed-income or cash returns over long historical periods and have projected this measure of the equity risk premium into the future. Second, the dividend discount model—or a variant of it, such as an earnings discount model—is used to estimate the future return on an equity index, and the fixed-income or cash yield is then subtracted to arrive at an equity risk premium expectation or forecast. Third, academics have used macroeconomic techniques to estimate what premium investors might rationally require for taking the risk of equities. Current thinking emphasizes the second, or dividend discount, approach and projects an equity risk premium centered on 3½% to 4%.

Financial Markets and the Real Economy reviews the current academic literature on the macroeconomics of finance.

Over two decades ago, Mehra and Prescott (1985) challenged the finance profession with a poser: the historical US equity premium is an order of magnitude greater than can be rationalized in the context of the standard neoclassical paradigm of financial economics. This regularity, dubbed "the equity premium puzzle," has spawned a plethora of research efforts to explain it away. In this review, the author takes a retrospective look at the original paper and explains the conclusion that the equity premium is not a premium for bearing non-diversifiable risk