The equity risk premium puzzle revisited: The case of the UK stock market.

Abstract

This thesis stimulated and inspired by failings in the current literature investigates a series of issues relating to the UK Equity Risk Premium Puzzle. The UK market is focussed upon given prior research is heavily concentrated on the us market. The prior literature also focuses upon the aggregate equity premium. This thesis makes another important extension to prior work by analysing the equity premium for portfolios formed on cross-sectional characteristics such as size or industry. Specifically, it addresses the following three main issues. Firstly, is the historical equity premium an appropriate proxy for the expected equity premium? Secondly, does the use of the ex-post equity premium overstate the magnitude of the ex-ante equity premium puzzle? Thirdly, do low frequency equity returns follow different regimes over time? The main results indicate that the alignment of ex-post equity returns with fundamental measures of equity returns depends upon both the time period considered and the measure of fundamental used. Empirical evidence also supports the view that the expected equity premium follows different regimes and thus does vary over time. This low-frequency time variation in expected returns appears to, in general, be systematic, affecting portfolios within the market at a similar time. Our results contribute to the academic literature and also have important implications for practitioners by offering insight into the nature of the Equity Premium Puzzle and the appropriateness of using ex-post returns as a proxy for ex-ante returns.