This paper documents a significantly stronger relationship between the slope of the yield curve and future excess bond returns on Treasuries from 2008-2015 than before 2008. This new predictability result is not matched by the standard shadow rate model with Gaussian factor dynamics, but...

We investigate the uncertainty dynamics surrounding extreme weather events through the lens of option and stock markets by identifying market responses to the uncertainty regarding both potential hurricane landfall and subsequent economic impact. Stock options on firms with establishments...

We derive an option-pricing formula from recursive preference and estimate rare disaster probability. The new options-pricing formula applies to far-out-of-the money put options on the stock market when disaster risk dominates, the size distribution of disasters follows a power law, and the...

Among growing concerns about potential financial stability risks posed by the asset management industry, herding has been considered as an important risk amplification channel. In this paper, we examine the extent to which institutional investors herd in their trading of U.S. corporate bonds and...

We use exchange-traded options to identify risks relevant to capital structure adjustments in firms. These forward-looking market-based risk measures provide significant explanatory power in predicting net leverage changes in excess of accounting data. They matter most during contractionary...

We document strong U.S. stock and bond return predictability from several macroeconomic volatility series before 1982, and a significant decline in this predictability during the Great Moderation. These findings are robust to alternative empirical specifications and out-of-sample tests. We...

We use non-Gaussian features in U.S. macroeconomic data to identify aggregate supply and demand shocks while imposing minimal economic assumptions. Recessions in the 1970s and 1980s were driven primarily by supply shocks, later recessions were driven primarily by demand shocks, and the Great...

Insurance companies often follow highly correlated investment strategies. As major investors in corporate bonds, their investment commonalities subject investors to fire-sale risk when regulatory restrictions prompt widespread divestment of a bond following a rating downgrade. Reflective of...

We study the term structure of default-free interest rates in a sticky-price model with an occasionally binding effective lower bound (ELB) constraint on interest rates and recursive preferences. The ELB constraint induces state-dependency in the dynamics of term premiums by affecting...

We investigate how market participants price and manage counterparty risk in the post-crisis period using confidential trade repository data on single-name credit default swap (CDS) transactions. We find that counterparty risk has a modest impact on the pricing of CDS contracts, but a large...