We use equity index options to quantify the distribution of consumption growth disasters. The challenge lies in connecting the risk-neutral distribution of equity returns implied by options to the true distribution of consumption growth estimated from macroeconomic data. We attack the problem...

We explore the term structures of claims to a variety of cash flows: U.S. government bonds (claims to dollars), foreign government bonds (claims to foreign currency), inflation-adjusted bonds (claims to the price index), and equity (claims to future equity indexes or dividends). Average term...

From 2004 to 2006, the FOMC raised the target federal funds rate by 4.25 percentage points, yet long-maturity yields and forward rates fell. We consider several possible explanations for this "conundrum." The most likely, in our view, is a fall in the term premium, probably associated with some...

We provide a new interpretation of the statistical relation between the trade balance and the terms of trade. This relation includes the J-curve, the tendency for trade balances to be negatively correlated with contemporaneous movements in the terms of trade, positively correlated with lagged...

We use asset returns to characterize the properties of the pricing kernel, including its volatility (measured by entropy) and time-dependence. Then we explore similar properties of a number of popular representative agent models: long-run risk, time-varying volatility and risk, several versions...

In this paper we are concerned with what drives international capital flows. The estimated spectra of net foreign asset positions show that they are driven almost entirely by low frequency components which argues against many of the dire warnings that are issued about short term adjustments in...

David K. Backus is the Heinz Riehl Professor of Finance and Economics at the Stern Business School of New York University. He has published extensively on International Business Cycles as well as on Foreign Exchange Theory. In particular, he teamed with Patrick Kehoe and Finn Kydland to launch...

This paper extends the multivariate stock-adjustment model commonly used in empirical studies of portfolio behavior in order to analyze the complete set of flow allocation decisions made by households (including consumption, expenditures on durables and houses, and various financial aggregates)....