This thesis examines the performance of different models of conditional betas and higher comoments in the context of the cross-section of expected stock returns, both in-sample and out-of-sample. I first examine the performance of different conditional market beta models by using monthly returns...

This paper establishes a novel argument that social networks among local politicians reduce spatial frictions of corporate investment. We leverage the replacement of city officials and the resulting exogenous variations of hometown ties among city party secretaries to examine their impact on...