The author has been described by News Ltd as an "iconoclast", "Svengali", a pollie's "economist muse", and "pungently accurate". Fairfax says he is a "Renaissance man" and "one of Australia’s most respected analysts." Stephen Koukoulas concludes that he is "85% right", and "would make a great Opposition leader." Terry McCrann claims the author thinks "‘nuance’ is a trendy village in the south of France", but can be "scintillating" when he thinks "clearly". The ACTU reckons he’s "an enigma wrapped in a Bloomberg terminal, wrapped in some apparently well-honed abs."

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

AFR print column (free): Super funds miss mark in bias to equities

In my AFR column today, which you can read for free, I try to solve the famous 'equity risk premium puzzle' identified in 1985 by a Nobel prize winning economist (and his co-author). The puzzle is why have equity returns been so much higher than government bond returns. My results, which have been independently confirmed in a yet-to-published study by Professor Richard Heaney and Stephen Kidd, suggest the opposite: the puzzle is why equity returns have been so low. Read the column here.


at 7:41 AM