Presents a comprehensive analysis of investment returns for equities, bonds, bills, currencies and inflation, spanning sixteen countries, from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. This book also provides evidence on the long-term equity risk premium - the reward for bearing the risk of common stocks. "Our favorite book on global stock market performance. . . . [It] epitomizes outstanding investment research. . . . Unless intelligent life is discovered on another planet and a stock market is found to have been operating there for some centuries, it is unlikely that much new data can be brought to bear on the issue of long-run stock returns. Triumph of the Optimists may well be the last word on the subject for some time to come."