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Title: 

Stock Returns, Inflation, and the 'Proxy Hypothesis:' A New Look at the Data

Authors: Balduzzi, Pierluigi
Keywords: vector autoregression;vector moving average;covariance decomposition
Issue Date: Jun-1994
Series/Report no.: FIN-94-008
Abstract: This paper reexamines the proxy hypothesis of Fama (American Economic Review, 1981, 71, 545-565) as the main explanation for the negative correlation between stock returns and inflation. We look at quarterly data on industrial-production growth, monetary-base growth, CPI inflation, three-month Treasury-bill rates, and returns on the equally-weighted NYSE portfolio, for the 1954-1976 and 1977-1990 periods. Using time-series techniques, we find that production growth induces only a weak negative correlation between inflation and stock returns, and explains less of the covariance between the two series than inflation and interest-rate innovations.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2451/27158
Appears in Collections:Finance Working Papers

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