; ; ; "ActiveFedora::Aggregation::ListSource" . a , ; "Average Debt and Equity Returns: Puzzling?"; ; "batchuser@example.com"; "McGrattan, Ellen R.", "Prescott, Edward C."; "Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis"; "G12 - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates"; "Mehra and Prescott (1985) found the difference between average equity and debt returns puzzling because it was too large to be a premium for bearing nondiversifiable aggregate risk. Here, we re-examine this puzzle, taking into account some factors ignored by Mehra and Prescott—taxes, regulatory constraints, and diversification costs—and focusing on long-term rather than short-term savings instruments. Accounting for these factors, we find the difference between average equity and debt returns during peacetime in the last century is less than 1 percent, with the average real equity return somewhat under 5 percent, and the average real debt return almost 4 percent. As theory predicts, the real return on debt has been close to the 4 percent average after-tax real return on capital. Similarly, as theory predicts, the real return on equity is equal to the after-tax real return on capital plus a modest premium for bearing nondiversifiable aggregate risk."^^; "2003-01"; "2019-06-21T21:00:38.559341066+00:00"^^; "https://doi.org/10.21034/sr.313"; ; "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"; "Thu Nov 7 21:55:11 2019"; "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"; "Research Paper"; "508", "628"; "Staff report (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Research Department)"; "313"; ; ; ; ; "Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Research Department"; """Published in: _AER, Papers and Proceedings_ (Vol. 93, No. 2, May 2003, pp. 392-397) https://doi.org/10.1257/000282803321947407. See related papers: [Staff Report 294: _The 1929 Stock Market: Irving Fisher Was Right_](https://doi.org/10.21034/sr.294) [Staff Report 309: _Taxes,Regulations, and the Value of U.S.and U.K. Corporations_] (https://doi.org/10.21034/sr.309) Quarterly Review articles (Vol. 24, No. 4, Fall 2000) [_The Declining U.S. Equity Premium_](https://doi.org/10.21034/qr.2441) and [_Is the Stock Market Overvalued?_](https://doi.org/10.21034/qr.2441) [Additional Files](https://researchdatabase.minneapolisfed.org/downloads/3484zg94r?locale=en) [M-files and Ftools](https://researchdatabase.minneapolisfed.org/downloads/4x51hj04n?locale=en) """^^; ; "Publication" . ; .