We analyze the risk, return and cash flow characteristics of infrastructure investments by using a unique dataset of deals done by private-equity-like investment funds. We show that infrastructure deals have a performance that is higher than that of non-infrastructure deals, despite lower default frequencies. However, we do not find that infrastructure deals offer more stable cash flows. Our pa...

This article presents a new series of monthly equity returns for the British stock market for the period 1825–1870. In addition to calculating capital appreciation and dividend yields, the article also estimates the effect of survivorship bias on returns. Three notable findings emerge from this study. First, stock market returns in the 1825–1870 period are broadly similar for Britain and the Un...

Acknowledgments We gratefully acknowledge the comments of Sudipta Basu, Christian Leuz and Jerry Zimmerman, the referee, and workshop participants at the Universities of Amsterdam and Chicago. We are grateful for financial support from the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business. Abstract We provide a simple test of " costly contracting " and " value relevance theories " of accountin...

We provide a simple comparative test of contracting and value relevance theories of accounting, using data on the importance of countries’ debt and equity markets. Contracting (debt markets) theory predicts conditional conservatism, in the Basu (1997) sense of asymmetrically timelier loss recognition than gain recognition, as proxied by a stronger relation between earnings and negative returns....

This paper examines the effect of inflation on stock valuations and expected long-run returns. Ex ante estimates of expected long-run returns are constructed by incorporating analysts’ earnings forecasts into a variant of the Campbell-Shiller dividend-price ratio model. The negative relation between equity valuations and expected inflation is found to be the result of two effects: a rise in exp...

There are large literatures about the role of three dummy variables in explaining economic activity: Republican elections, oil shocks, and Romer dates, which mark monetary tightening. Many have argued that one or more of the three is not a cause of recessions. This paper parallels those literatures in examining equity returns and the three dummies. Given that equity returns vary with the busine...

We estimate the sensitivity of investment to the cost of outside equity for young firms. For estimation, we exploit differences across firms in eligibility to a new tax relief program for individual outside investors in the UK. On average, investment increases 1.5% in response to a 10% drop in the cost of outside equity. This average conceals substantial heterogeneity: 1% of eligible firms issu...

The anomalies literature in capital markets research in finance and accounting is based (almost) exclusively on average realized returns. In contrast, we construct accountingbased expected returns for dollar-neutral long-short trading strategies formed on a wide array of anomaly variables, including book to market, size, composite issuance, net stock issues, abnormal investment, asset growth, i...