In this paper, I investigate the scope of a model with exogenous habit formation - or quot;catching up with the Joneses,quot; see Abel (1990) - to generate the observed equity premium as well as other key macroeconomic facts. Along the way, I derive restrictions for four out of eight parameters...

Past empirical research on monetary policy in open economies has found evidence of the 'delayed overshooting', the 'forward discount' and the 'exchange rate' puzzles. We revisit the effects of monetary policy on exchange rates by applying Uhlig's (2005) identification procedure that involves...

This paper analyzes dynamic equilibrium risk sharing contracts between profit-maximizing intermediaries and a large pool of ex-ante identical agents that face idiosyncratic income uncertainty that makes them heterogeneous ex-post. In any given period, after having observed her income, the agent...

Risk premia in the consumption capital asset pricing model depend on preferences and dividends. We develop a decomposition which allows for the separate treatment of both components. We show that preferences alone determine the risk-return trade-off measured by the Sharpe-ratio

Many asset pricing puzzles can be explained when habit formation is added to standard preferences. We show that utility functions with a habit then gives rise to a puzzle of consumption volatility in place of the asset pricing puzzles when agents can choose consumption and labor optimally in...

We present a dynamic general equilibrium model with agency costs, where heterogeneous firms choose among two alternative instruments of external finance - corporate bonds and bank loans. We characterize the financing choice of firms and the endogenous financial structure of the economy. The...

What is the source of interest rate volatility? Why do low interest rates precede business cycle booms? Most observers tend to assume that monetary policy is largely responsible for it. Indeed, a standard real business cycle model delivers rather small fluctuations in real interest rates. Here,...