Do survey expectations of stock returns reflect risk adjustments?

To reconcile the disconnect between survey expectations of stock returns and rational expectations, researchers have hypothesized that participants may confound beliefs preferences by (i) reporting risk-neutral forecasts future returns; or (ii) pessimistically-tilted reflecting ambiguity aversion robustness concerns. We find these hypotheses are strongly rejected data, albeit for different reasons: Inconsistent with hypothesis (i), return reliably much higher than risk-free interest rates expected excess predictably time-varying. (ii), agents not always pessimistic about returns, but often optimistic unconditionally unbiased.