We identify a common misconception that expected future changes in short-term interest rates predict corresponding future changes in long-term interest rates. People forecast similar shapes for the paths of short and long rates over the next four quarters. This is a mistake because long rates...

If voters are fully rational and have negligible cognition costs, ballot layout should not affect election outcomes. In this paper, we explore deviations from rational voting using quasi-random variation in candidate name placement on ballots from the 2003 California Recall Election. We find...

A conditional asset pricing model with risk and uncertainty implies that the time-varying exposures of equity portfolios to the market and uncertainty factors carry positive risk premiums. The empirical results from the size, book-to-market, and industry portfolios as well as individual stocks...

This paper offers an ambiguity-based interpretation of variance premium - the difference between risk-neutral and objective expectations of market return variance - as a compounding effect of both belief distortion and variance differential regarding the uncertain economic regimes. Our approach...

We incorporate regime switching between monetary and fiscal policies in a general equilibrium model to explain three stylized facts: (1) the positive stock-bond return correlation from 1971 to 2000 and the negative one after 2000, (2) the negative correlation between consumption and inflation...

China's four-trillion-yuan stimulus package fueled by bank loans in 2009 has led to the rapid growth of shadow banking activities in China after 2012. The local governments in China financed the stimulus plan mainly through bank loans in 2009, and resorted to non-bank debt financing after 2012...

We introduce uncertainty into Holmstrom and Milgrom (1987) to study optimal long-term contracting with learning. In a dynamic relationship, the agent's shirking not only reduces current performance but also increases the agent's information rent due to the persistent belief manipulation effect....

Systemic risk arises when shocks lead to states where a disruption in financial intermediation adversely affects the economy and feeds back into further disrupting financial intermediation. We present a macroeconomic model with a financial intermediary sector subject to an equity capital...