FinObservatory

Rate of return on everything

Norway

What one unit of currency became

Invested in 1881 and held to 2020, after inflation. Equities ended at 226.6x, housing at 27730.3x, bonds at 12.2x and bills at 2.4x. The scale is logarithmic, because over a century of compounding a linear axis would flatten three of these four lines into the floor. The dashed line is 1.0: below it, the asset lost purchasing power.

1x10x100x1,000x10,000x19001925195019752000227x28,000x12x2.4x
EquitiesHousingBondsBillsbanking crisis (JST)

Source: Jorda-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database, Release 6 (Jorda, Knoll, Kuvshinov, Schularick & Taylor) Compounded over the 140 years in which all four assets were reported. Shaded bars are JST's own banking-crisis years. Methodology

Compound annual real return

AssetReal returnExcluding the warsVolatilityObservationsSpan
Equities3.95%4.48%19.511401881-2020
Housing7.82%8.52%9.401501871-2020
Bonds2.07%2.98%8.781501871-2020
Bills0.84%1.62%5.901501871-2020

Source: Jorda-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database, Release 6 (Jorda, Knoll, Kuvshinov, Schularick & Taylor) Nominal returns deflated by JST's own consumer price index. No observation for this country is flagged as interpolated. Methodology

Coverage for Norway

Equities 140 years, housing 150, bonds 151, bills 151. JST flags 4 banking crisis years for this country, marked on the chart. An average taken over a short series is a weaker statistic than one taken over a long series, and the counts are here so you can tell which you are reading.

Methodology