Publications

Subjective Cash Flow and Discount Rate Expectations [June 2021] [ The Journal of Finance] [Working paper version] (with Sean Myers) 

Why do stock prices vary? Using survey forecasts, we find that cash flow growth expectations explain most movements in the S&P 500 price-dividend and price-earnings ratios, accounting for at least 93% and 63% of their variation. These expectations comove strongly with price ratios, even when price ratios do not predict future cash flow growth. In comparison, return expectations have low volatility and small comovement with price ratios. Short-term, rather than long-term, expectations account for most price ratio variation. We propose an asset pricing model with beliefs about earnings growth reversal that accurately replicates these cash flow growth expectations and dynamics.

Cite as:
-Delao, Ricardo and Sean Myers. 2021. “Subjective Cash Flow and Discount Rate Expectations.” The Journal of Finance 76 (3): 1339-1387. Bibtex

Which Subjective Expectations Explain Asset Prices?  [February 2024] [Review of Financial Studies] [Working paper version](with Sean Myers)

2023 Driehaus Center for Behavioral Finance Research Prize 

We present a method for determining whether errors in expectations explain asset pricing puzzles without imposing assumptions about the error mechanism. Using accounting identities and survey forecasts, we find that errors in expected long-term inflation explain price variation, return predictability, and the rejection of the expectations hypothesis for aggregate stock and bond markets. Errors in short-term (long-term) nominal earnings growth expectations explain (do not explain) stock price variation and return predictability. The relevant errors are consistent with mistakes about the persistence of forecasted variables and the response to surprises. A simple framework based on fundamental extrapolation successfully replicates these findings.

Cite as:
-Delao, Ricardo and Sean Myers. 2024. “Which Subjective Expectations Explain Asset Prices?” The Review of Financial Studies 37 (6): 1929–1978. Bibtex

The Return of Return Dominance: Decomposing the Cross-Section of Prices: [July 2025] [ Journal of Financial Economics](with Xiao Han and Sean Myers)

2023 Jacobs Levy Center Research Paper Prize for Best Paper, 2023 Marshall Blume Prize in Financial Research, 2024 EFA Best Paper Award in Investments 

What explains cross-sectional dispersion in stock valuation ratios? We find that 75% of dispersion in price-earnings ratios is reflected in differences in future returns, while only 25% is reflected in differences in future earnings growth. This holds at both the portfolio-level and the firm-level. We reconcile these conclusions with previous literature which has found a strong relation between prices and future profitability. Our results support models in which the cross-section of price-earnings ratios is driven mainly by discount rates or mispricing rather than future earnings growth. Evaluating six models of the value premium, we find that most models struggle to match our results, however, models with long-lived differences in risk exposure or gradual learning about parameters perform the best. The lack of earnings growth differences at long horizons provides new evidence in favor of long-run return predictability. We also show a similar dominance of predicted returns for explaining the dispersion in return surprises.

Cite as:
-Delao, Ricardo, Xiao Han, and Sean Myers. 2025. “The Return of Return Dominance: Decomposing the Cross-Section of Prices.” Journal of Financial Economics. Bibtex

Working papers

The Cross-Section of Subjective Expectations: Understanding Prices and Anomalies  [December 2024] (with Xiao Han and Sean Myers)

Cross-sectional decompositions using professional forecasts show high price-earnings ratios are accounted for by both low expected returns and overly high expected earnings growth. The magnitudes and timing of the comovements between prices, earnings growth, and returns are consistent with gradual learning rather than expectations being highly sensitive to recent realizations. Earnings growth surprises do not translate 1-1 into one-period returns, but instead are gradually reflected in returns over time. A structural model incorporating constant-gain learning about mean earnings growth, coupled with risk premia linked to cash flow timing, replicates our findings and generates realistic dispersion and persistence in price-earnings ratios.

Cite as:
-Delao, Ricardo, Xiao Han, and Sean Myers. 2024. “The Cross-Section of Subjective Expectations: Understanding Prices and Anomalies.” Working Paper. Bibtex

The Subjective Belief Factor [March 2025]  (with Tingyue Cui  and Sean Myers)

Subjective expectations and asset prices both revolve around distorted probabilities. Subjective expectations are expectations under biased probabilities, and asset prices are expectations under risk-neutral probabilities. Given this link, asset pricing techniques designed to estimate a Stochastic Discount Factor (SDF) can be used to estimate a Subjective Belief Factor (SBF) – a distortion that characterizes many subjective expectations, even for non-financial variables. Further, the Subjective Belief Factor can be used to characterize asset prices, by separating the roles of beliefs and preferences/risk. Using the Survey of Professional Forecasters and Blue Chip, we find that differences between subjective expectations and statistical expectations for 24 macroeconomic variables can be summarized (average R2 of 50%) by a single SBF related to real GDP growth and the T-bill rate. This SBF accurately replicates differences across the 24 variables in the serial autocorrelation of forecast errors and under/overreaction. Applying this SBF to cross-sectional stock returns, we find it accounts for the majority of excess returns for the Fama-French factors and explains about two thirds of the variation in returns across 176 anomalies, while the remaining third is attributed to preferences/risk. Our results support models like diagnostic expectations and robust control in which agents' beliefs across different variables are characterized by a single probability distortion.

Cite as:
-Cui, Tingyue, Ricardo Delao, and Sean Myers. 2025. “The Subjective Belief Factor.” Working Paper. Bibtex

The Effect of Buybacks on Capital Allocation [November 2022] 

This paper studies how the flexibility of share buybacks relative to dividends affects capital allocation, aggregate investment and welfare. I propose a dynamic equilibrium model of heterogeneous firms with agency frictions and adjustment costs to dividend payments. The shareholders of each firm decide equity financing and payouts. The presence of buybacks allows shareholders to easily pay out cash flows and control managers’ available funds. Further, buybacks make stock price more sensitive to profits, which improves the ability of stock-based compensation to discipline managers. These two channels reduce capital and cash misallocation across and within firms. The model is matched to micro data on public firms and can help explain several observed corporate trends: the decline in investment rates, the increase in corporate financial assets and the increase in profitability of capital.

Cite as:
-Delao, Ricardo. 2022. “The Effect of Buybacks on Capital Allocation.” Working Paper. Bibtex

Employment Dynamics and Monetary Policy for Emerging Economies under Informality  [October 2019] (with Stephen McKnight)

This paper investigates the role of labor informality in the propagation of transitory shocks and its implications for interest rate policy in preventing self-fulfilling inflation expectations. We develop a dynamic New Keynesian model where the size of the informal sector reacts to search and matching frictions in the formal sector, which can account for the observed behavior of formal and informal employment in Mexico. We show that informality reduces the volatility of aggregate consumption and employment, but investment volatility increases. While informality amplifies the propagation of demand shocks on inflation, it dampens the response of output, weakening the transmission mechanism of monetary policy to output. For interest-rate feedback rules that react to formal measures of inflation, we find that informality significantly restricts the ability of the Taylor principle to ensure determinacy. However, we show that determinacy can be restored when policy also responds to formal output.

Cite as:
-Delao, Ricardo and Stephen McKnight. 2019. “Employment Dynamics and Monetary Policy for Emerging Economies under Informality.” Working Paper. Bibtex