We propose a duration-based explanation for the major equity risk factors, including value, profitability, investment, low-risk, and payout factors. Both in the US and globally, these factors invest in firms that earn most of their cash flows in the near future. The factors could therefore be...

This thesis concerns the empirical relation between risk and return in equities. It studies why the expected return on stocks as a whole varies over time and why there are predictable cross-sectional di↵erences in the return on individual stocks. The thesis consists of three chapters which can...

Standard theory implies that the discount rates used by firms in investment decisions play a key role in determining investment and in transmitting shocks to asset prices and interest rates to the real economy. However, there exists little evidence on how corporate discount rates change over...

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...

"The expected time- and risk-adjusted cumulative return on any asset equals one at all horizons. Nonetheless, I show that a typical asset's realized time- and risk-adjusted cumulative return tends to zero almost surely. As a corollary, the value of a typical long-dated asset is driven by extreme...

The expected time- and risk-adjusted cumulative return on any asset equals one at all horizons. Nonetheless, I show that a typical asset's realized time- and risk-adjusted cumulative return tends to zero almost surely. As a corollary, the value of a typical long-dated asset is driven by extreme...