We examine asset prices in environments where the risk-free rate lies considerably below the growth rate. To do so, we introduce a tractable model of a production economy featuring heterogeneous trading technologies, as well as idiosyncratic and aggregate risk. We show that allowing for the...

We study how investors respond to inflation combining a customized survey experiment with trading data at a time of historically high inflation. Investors' beliefs about the stock return-inflation relation are very heterogeneous in the cross section and on average too optimistic. Moreover, many...

We show that firms' nominal required returns to capital (i.e., their discount rates) are sticky with respect to expected inflation. Such nominally sticky discount rates imply that increases in expected inflation directly lower firms' real discount rates and thereby raise real investment. We...

We develop a model of self-fulfilling default cycles with demand externality a la Dixit- Stiglitz to explain the recurrent clustered defaults observed in the data. The literature reports that observable fundamental factors alone are insufficient to explain the cluster. A decline in aggregate...

Standard theory implies that the discount rates used by firms in investment decisions (i.e., their required returns to capital) determine investment and transmit financial shocks to the real economy. However, there exists little evidence on how firms' discount rates change over time and affect...

We use data on stock portfolios of Norwegian households to show that stock market wealth increases entrepreneurship by relaxing financial constraints. Our research design isolates idiosyncratic variation in household-level stock market returns. An increase in stock market wealth increases the...

We study the effects of monetary-policy-induced changes in Tobin's q on corporate investment and capital structure. We develop a theory of the mechanism, provide empirical evidence, evaluate the ability of the quantitative theory to match the evidence, and quantify the relevance for monetary...

Consider an economy in which agents face income risk but interact in a stochastic financial network where the randomness is dictated by both chance and choice. We study the financial centrality of an agent defined as the ex-ante marginal social value of providing a small liquid asset to that...

This paper reviews recent developments in macro and finance on the relationship between financial risk and the real economy. We focus on three specific topics: the term structure of uncertainty, time variation - and specifically the long-term decline - in the variance risk premium, and time...

The current monetary policy framework of the Fed intends to be more 'inclusive' by running the economy hot for longer during expansions. The logic of this strategy rests on Okun's (1973) hypothesis that sustaining a 'high-pressure economy' persistently improves labor market outcomes of low-wage...