> 1. In terms of total returns, residential real estate and equities have shown very similar and high real total gains, on average about 7% per year. ... The observation that housing returns are similar to equity returns, yet considerably less volatile, is puzzling.
> 2. We find that the real safe asset return has been very volatile over the long-run, more so than one might expect, and oftentimes even more volatile than real risky returns.
> 3. ...our data uncover substantial swings in the risk premium at lower frequencies that sometimes endured for decades, and which far exceed the amplitudes of business-cycle swings.
> 4. Comparing returns to growth, or “r minus g” in Piketty’s notation, we uncover a striking finding. Even calculated from more granular asset price returns data, the same fact reported in Piketty (2014) holds true for more countries and more years, and more dramatically: namely “r >> g.” ...globally, and across most countries, the weighted rate of return on capital was twice as high as the growth rate in the past 150 years.