What did Campbell and Shiller tell the Federal Reserve Board? They explained that historically, when the dividend yield (D/P) has been low and the price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) high, the return to holding stocks over the subsequent ten years has tended to be low. This should not be surprising. The earnings yield is E/P, the inverse of P/E. In a rationally Priced market, dividend yields and earnings yields form the basis of stock returns. Recall the question in chapter 2 concerning reinvested dividends and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. One of the lessons from that question is that when it comes to long-run stock returns, compounded dividends swamp stock price. The future course of earnings and dividends would have to be dramatically better than in the past to rationalize high subsequent stock returns in a low D/P and E/P environment.
To place the Campbell- Shiller argument into context, let me point out that the historical mean for the dividend yields is 4.73 percent. But in late 1996, it was an extremely low 1.9 percent. The historical mean for P/E is 14.2. Moreover, for most of the time since 1872, P/E has moved in the range of 8 to 20. Until recently, its peak of 26 dated back to 1929; however, in December 1996, the P/E stood at 28. In their joint