Abstract
This paper takes a close look at the “behavioural finance” explanations of the equity premium puzzle, namely myopic loss aversion [Benartzi, S., Thaler, R.H.,1995. Myopic loss aversion and the equity premium puzzle. Quarterly Journal of Economics 110, 73–92] and disappointment aversion [Ang, A., Bekaert, G., Liu, J., 2005. Why stocks may disappoint. Journal of Financial Economics 76, 471–508]. The paper proposes a simple specification of loss and disappointment aversion and brings these theories to the data. The main conclusion is that a highly short-sighted investment horizon is required for the historical equity premium to be explained by loss aversion, while reasonable values for disappointment aversion are found also for long investment horizons; stocks may not only lose in the short term, but also disappoint in the long term.