We test the usefulness of Machine Learning (ML) for sovereign risk assessment and pricing in the euro area along two important dimensions: i) their predictive accuracy compared to traditional econometrics methods and, ii) their assessment on what are the most important economic factors behind...

Economic theory identifies two potential sources of return predictability: time variation in expected returns (beta-predictability) or market inefficiencies (alpha-predictability). For the latter, Samuelson argued that macro-returns exhibit more inefficiencies than micro-returns, as individual...

After the Covid-shock in March 2020, stock prices declined abruptly, reflecting both the deterioration of investors' expectations of economic activity as well as the surge in aggregate risk aversion. In the following months however, whereas economic activity remained sluggish, equity markets...

Stock prices declined abruptly in the wake of the Covid-19, reflecting both the deterioration of investors’ expectations of economic activity as well as the surge in risk aversion. In the following months, however, economic activity remained sluggish while equity markets bounced back. This...