Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0 Author-Name: Dr. Thomas Nitschka Author-Name-First: Thomas Author-Name-Last: Nitschka Author-Person: pni214 Title: Global and country-specific business cycle risk in time-varying excess returns on asset markets Abstract: Deviations of national industrial production indexes from trend explain time variation in excess returns on the G7 countries' stock markets. This paper highlights that this finding is driven by a global, common component in the national production gaps. The global component is not a mirror image of the U.S. business cycle. Quite to the contrary, a "rest-ofthe-world" production gap explains time variation in U.S. stock market excess returns while the U.S.-specific production gap does not. However, both U.S.-specific and global gap components explain time-varying excess returns on U.S. bonds. The relative importance of the U.S.-specific risk gap increases with the maturity of bonds. Length: 58 pages Creation-Date: 2012 Contact-Email: forschung@snb.ch File-URL: https://www.snb.ch/en/publications/research/working-papers/2012/working_paper_2012_10 File-Format: text/html Number: 2012-10 Classification-JEL: E32, F44, G15 Keywords: bond return, business cycle risk, excess returns, industrial production, predictability, stock return Handle: RePEc:snb:snbwpa:2012-10