The paper shows that lottery-like stocks are hedges against unexpected increases in market volatility. The loading on the aggregate volatility risk factor explains low returns to stocks with high maximum returns in the past (Bali, Cakici, and Whitelaw, 2011) and high expected skewness (Boyer, Mitton, and Vorkink, 2010). Aggregate volatility risk also explains the new evidence that the maximum e...

Many stockholders irrationally believe that high recent market returns predict high future market returns. I argue that the presence of these extrapolative investors can help resolve the equity premium puzzle if the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS) is greater than unity. Extrapolators’ overreaction to dividend news generates countercyclical expected returns. Rational investors res...

This paper revisits the time-series relation between the conditional risk premium and variance of the equity market portfolio. The main innovation is that we construct a measure of the ex ante equity market risk premium using corporate bond yield spread data. This measure is forward-looking and does not rely critically on either realized equity returns or instrumental variables. We find strong ...

We study a production economy with regime switching in the conditional mean and volatility of productivity growth. The representative agent has generalized disappointment aversion (GDA) preferences. We show that volatility risk in productivity growth carries a positive and sizable risk premium in levered equity. Our model can endogenously generate long-run risks in the volatility of consumption...

A standard assumption of structural models of default is that firms assets evolve exogenously. In this paper, we document the importance of accounting for investment options in models of credit risk. In the presence of financing and investment frictions, firm-level variables which proxy for asset composition carry explanatory power for credit spreads beyond leverage. As a result, cross-sectiona...

We formulate a consumption-based asset pricing model in which aggregate risk aversion is time-varying in response to both news about consumption growth (as in a habit formation model) and news about inflation. We estimate our model and explore its pricing implications for the term structure of interest rates and the cross-section of stock returns. Our empirical results support the hypothesis th...

We provide a model of rational bubbles in a DNK framework. Entrepreneurs are heterogeneous in investment efficiency and face credit constraints. They can trade bubble assets to raise their net worth. The bubble assets command a liquidity premium and can have a positive value. Monetary policy affects the conditions for the existence of a bubble, its steady-state size, and its dynamics including ...

We develop a model in which the capital of the intermediary sector plays a critical role in determining asset prices. The model is cast within a dynamic general equilibrium economy, and the role for intermediation is derived endogenously based on optimal contracting considerations. Low intermediary capital reduces the risk-bearing capacity of the marginal investor. We show how this force helps ...

Premiums on U.S. sovereign CDS have risen to persistently elevated levels since the financial crisis. We ask whether these premiums reflect the probability of a fiscal default – a state in which budget balance can no longer be restored by raising taxes or eroding the real value of debt by raising inflation. We develop an equilibrium macrofinance model in which the fiscal and monetary policy sta...