We characterize and measure a long-term risk-return trade-off for the valuation of cash flows exposed to fluctuations in macroeconomic growth. This trade-off features risk prices of cash flows that are realized far into the future but continue to be reflected in asset values. We apply this analysis to claims on aggregate cash flows and to cash flows from value and growth portfolios by imputing values to the long-run dynamic responses of cash flows to macroeconomic shocks. We explore the sensitivity of our results to features of the economic valuation model and of the model cash flow dynamics. I.

Abstract not found

This paper incorporates a time-varying severity of disasters into the hypothesis proposed by Rietz (1988) and Barro (2006) that risk premia result from the possibility of rare large disasters. During a disaster an asset’s fundamental value falls by a time-varying amount. This in turn generates time-varying risk premia and thus volatile asset prices and return predictability. Using the recent technique of linearity-generating processes, the model is tractable and all prices are exactly solved in closed form. In this paper’s framework, the following empirical regularities can be understood quantitatively: (i) equity premium puzzle; (ii) risk-free rate puzzle; (iii) excess volatility puzzle; (iv) predictability of aggregate stock market returns with price-dividend ratios; (v) often greater explanatory power of characteristics than covariances for asset returns; (vi) upward sloping nominal yield curve; (vii) predictability of future bond excess returns and long term rates via the slope of the yield curve; (viii) corporate bond spread puzzle; (ix) high price of deep out-of-the-money puts; and (x) high put prices being followed by high stock returns. The calibration passes a variance bound test, as normal-times market volatility is consistent with the wide dispersion of disaster outcomes in the historical record. The model also extends to Epstein-Zin-Weil preferences and to a setting with many factors.

This paper surveys research on computational agent-based models used in finance. It will concentrate on models where the use of computational tools is critical in the process of crafting models which give insights into the importance and dynamics of investor heterogeneity in many financial settings.

Investors demand high risk premia for defaultable claims, because (i) defaults tend to con-centrate in bad times when marginal utility is high; (ii) default losses are high during such times. I build a structural model of financing and default decisions in an economy with business-cycle variations in expected growth rates and volatility, which endogenously generate countercyclical comovements in risk prices, default probabilities, and default losses. Credit risk premia in the calibrated model not only can quantitatively account for the high corporate bond yield spreads and low leverage ratios in the data, but have rich implications for firms ’ financing decisions. Risks associated with macroeconomic conditions are crucial for understanding asset prices. Naturally, they should also have important implications for corporate decisions. By introducing macroeconomic conditions into firms ’ financing decisions, this paper provides a risk-based expla-

This paper presents a fully rational general equilibrium model that produces a timevarying exchange rate risk premium and solves the uncovered interest rate parity (U.I.P) puzzle. In this two-country model, agents are characterized by slow-moving external habit preferences derived from Campbell & Cochrane (1999). Endowment shocks are i.i.d and real risk-free rates are time-varying. Agents can trade across countries, but when a unit is shipped, only a fraction of the good arrives to the foreign shore. The model gives a rationale for the U.I.P puzzle: the domestic investor receives a positive exchange rate risk premium when she is more risk-averse than her foreign counterpart. Times of high riskaversion correspond to low interest rates. Thus, the domestic investor receives a positive risk premium when interest rates are lower at home than abroad. The model is both simulated and estimated. The simulation recovers the usual negative coefficient between exchange rate variations and interest rate differentials. When the iceberg-like trade cost is taken into account, the exchange rate variance produced is in line with its empirical counterpart. A nonlinear estimation of the model using consumption data leads to reasonable parameters when pricing the foreign excess returns of an American investor.

I introduce bankruptcy into a complete markets model with a continuum of ex ante identical agents who have power utility. Shares in a Lucas tree serve as collateral. Bankruptcy gives rise to a second risk factor in addition to aggregate consumption growth risk. This liquidity risk is created by binding solvency constraints. The risk is measured by one moment of the wealth distribution, which multiplies the standard Breeden-Lucas stochastic discount factor. The economy is said to experience a negative liquidity shock when this growth rate is high, a large fraction of agents faces severely binding solvency constraints and the trading volume is low in financial markets. The adjustment to the Breeden-Lucas stochastic discount factor induces time variation in equity, bond and currency risk premia that is consistent with the data.

Abstract not found

Concerns about misspecification and an enduring model selection problem in which one of the models has long run risks give rise to countercyclical risk premia. We use two risk-sensitivity operators to construct the stochastic discount factor for a representative consumer who evaluates consumption streams in light of model selection and parameter estimation problems that can aggravate or attenuate long run risks as time passes. The arrival of signals induces the consumer to alter his posterior distribution over models and parameters. The consumer copes with specification doubts by slanting probabilities pessimistically. These pessimistic model probabilities induce model uncertainty premia that contribute a time-varying component to what is ordinarily measured as the market price of risk.

Exploiting micro-level household consumption data, we show that long-run stockholder consumption risk captures cross-sectional variation in average stock returns, including the size and value premia. To generate a longer time-series we form factor-mimicking portfolios for stockholder consumption growth that perform at least as well as the Fama-French factors in asset pricing tests. The stockholder share of aggregate consumption also captures time-variation in stock and bond market returns that mirrors the dynamics of the aggregate consumption-to-wealth ratio. We interpret our findings under a model of recursive preferences and find that risk aversion as low as 5 is sufficient to match both the cross-sectional price of risk and the equity premium for the wealthiest stockholders.