Is the Stock Market Overvalued?

Because of data availability, our calculations are based on data for all corporations, not just those which have their shares traded in the major stock exchanges.At the end of 1999, the value of corporations traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, and the Nasdaq Stock Market was 84 percent of the total corporate value.Most of the data used in this study are from two sources: the U.S. Department of Commerce's national income and product accounts and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System's flow of ftinds accounts of the United States (U.S. Commerce 2000, various dates; FR Board, various dates).2 Theoretically, the market value of equity plus the market value of debt liabilities should equal the market value of debt assets plus the value of productive assets.Since net indebtedness of corporations is currently small, we ignore corporate debt holdings and liabilities when modeling the U.S. economy.