How the Wealth Was Won: Factors Shares as Market Fundamentals

Abstract

Why do stocks rise and fall? From 1989 to 2017, the real per-capita value of corporate equity increased at a 7.5% annual rate. We estimate that 44% of this increase was attributable to a reallocation of rewards to shareholders in a decelerating economy, primarily at the expense of labor compensation. Economic growth accounted for just 25%, of the increase followed by a lower risk price (18%), and lower interest rates (14%). The period 1952 to 1988 experienced less than one third of the growth in market equity, but economic growth accounted for more than 100% of it.