Using trading data from Finland and the US, I empirically show that investors tend to buy riskier stocks following realized losses. The measure of risk that the investors seem to pay attention to is the market beta of a stock. This behavior of buying higher beta stocks after a realized loss is...

I solve a portfolio optimization problem with stochastic death rates. An agent demands more of an asset that pays off high (low) in states of the world when he expects to live longer (shorter) than an asset with the opposite payoff. Consequently, in equilibrium, an asset with a positive...

Three concepts: stochastic discount factors, multi-beta pricing and mean-variance efficiency, are at the core of modern empirical asset pricing. This chapter reviews these paradigms and the relations among them, concentrating on conditional asset-pricing models where lagged variables serve as...

After taking into account biases induced by infrequent trading and selection, it is unlikely that illiquid asset classes have higher risk-adjusted returns than traditional liquid stock and bond markets. On the other hand, there are significant illiquidity premiums within asset classes. Portfolio...

We study consumption-portfolio and asset pricing frameworks with recursive preferences and unspanned risk. We show that in both cases, portfolio choice and asset pricing, the value function of the investor/representative agent can be characterized by a specific semilinear partial differential...

We study continuous-time optimal consumption and investment with Epstein-Zin recursive preferences in incomplete markets. We develop a novel approach that rigorously constructs the solution of the associated Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation by a fixed point argument and makes it possible to...

Bond yields today are well below and stock market valuations are well above their historical average. There are no historical periods in the United States where comparable low bond yields and high equity valuations have occurred simultaneously. Both current bond yields and stock values have been...

This paper introduces endogenous preference evolution into a Lucas-type economy and explores its consequences for investors' trading strategy and the dynamics of asset prices. In equilibrium, investors herd and hold the same portfolio of risky assets which is biased toward stocks of sectors that...

I show in a setting of a buyer and seller with the same preferences trading two related assets so as to share volatility risk that illiquidity and virtually all impediments to trade cannot be priced in the absence of excess short-selling costs. This is because the buyer values the asset at the...