Common stock returns, real activity, money, and inflation: Some international evidence

Abstract This paper tests whether the negative relationship between real stock returns and inflation in the United States is in fact proxying for a positive relationship between stock returns and real activity variables in six major industrial countries over 1966–1979. Consistent with Fama's ‘proxy-effect’ hypothesis, we document a negative relationship between inflation and real activity and a positive one between real stock returns and real activity variables. Real activity variables dominate money growth rates and expected and unexpected inflation in explaining real stock returns. A puzzling result that still remains is the positive role of money and the negative role of expected inflation in explaining these real stock returns in all major industrial countries.

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