This paper studies the synchronization of financial cycles across 17 advanced economies over the past 150 years. The comovement in credit, house prices, and equity prices has reached historical highs in the past three decades. The sharp increase in the comovement of global equity markets is particularly notable. We demonstrate that fluctuations in risk premiums, […]

The risk premium puzzle is worse than you think. Using a new database for the U.S. and 15 other advancedeconomies from 1870 to the present that includes housing as well as equity returns (to capture thefull risky capital portfolio of the representative agent), standard calculations using returns to total wealthand consumption show that: housing returns […]

with Óscar Jordá, Katharina Knoll, Dmitry Kuvshinov and Alan M. Taylor. This paper answers fundamental questions that have preoccupied modern economic thought since the 18th century. What is the aggregate real rate of return in the economy? Is it higher than the growth rate of the economy and, if so, by how much? Is there […]