Investors have too often extrapolated from recent experience. In the 1950s, who but the most rampant optimist would have dreamt that over the next fifty years the real return on equities would be 9% per year? Yet this is what happened in the U.S. stock market. The optimists triumphed. However, as Don Marquis observed, an optimist is someone who never had much experience. The authors of this book extend our experience across regions and across time. They present a comprehensive and consistent 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 is achieved in a clear and simple way, with over 130 color diagrams that make comparison easy.
Crucially, the authors analyze total returns, including reinvested income. They show that some historical indexes overstate long-term performance because they are contaminated by survivorship bias and that long-term stock returns are in most countries seriously overestimated, due to a focus on periods that with hindsight are known to have been successful.
The book also provides the first comprehensive evidence on the long-term equity risk premium--the reward for bearing the risk of common stocks. The authors reveal whether the United States and United Kingdom have had unusually high stock market returns compared to other countries. The book covers the U.S., the U.K., Japan, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Denmark, and South Africa.

Triumph of the Optimists is required reading for investment professionals, financial economists, and investors. It will be the definitive reference in the field and consulted for years to come.

投资者经常从最近的经验中推断。在20世纪50年代，除了最狂热的乐观主义者，谁会梦想在未来50年里，股票的实际回报率将是每年9%呢？然而，美国股市就是这样。乐观主义者胜利了。然而，正如唐·马奎斯所说，乐观主义者是一个从未有过太多经验的人。这本书的作者将我们的经验扩展到不同的地区和不同的时间。它们对19世纪末至21世纪初16个国家的股票、债券、票据、货币和通货膨胀的投资回报进行了全面和一致的分析。这是在一个明确和简单的方式，与130多个彩色图表，使比较容易实现。
最关键的是，作者分析了总回报，包括再投资收益。它们表明，一些历史指数高估了长期业绩，因为它们受到生存偏差的影响，而且大多数国家的长期股票回报率被严重高估，因为它们关注的是事后才知道是成功的时期。
这本书还提供了关于长期股权风险溢价（承担普通股风险的回报）的第一个全面证据。作者揭示了与其他国家相比，美国和英国的股市回报率是否异常高。这本书涵盖了美国、英国、日本、法国、德国、加拿大、意大利、西班牙、瑞士、澳大利亚、荷兰、瑞典、比利时、爱尔兰、丹麦和丹麦。
《乐观主义者的胜利》是投资专业人士、金融经济学家和投资者的必读读物。这将是该领域的决定性参考，并在未来几年内进行咨询。