The macro risk premium measures the threshold return for real activity that receives funding from savers. We base our argument in this paper on the relationship between the macro risk premium and the growth of financial intermediaries' balance sheets. The spare capacity of their balance sheets...

We study regression-based estimators for beta representations of dynamic asset pricing models with affine and exponentially affine pricing kernel specifications. These estimators extend static cross-sectional asset pricing estimators to settings where prices of risk vary with observed state...

The Federal Reserve collects data on the financing activities of the primary government securities dealers. Some market analysts argue that the data show a considerable rise in dealer leverage in recent years. However, a close reading of the data suggests that dealer borrowing involving...

This paper models the impact of arbitrageurs on stock prices when arbitrageurs are uncertain about the drift of the dividend process of a risky asset. Under perfect information, the presence of risk-neutral arbitrageurs unambiguously reduces the volatility of asset returns. When arbitrageurs are...

We define CoVaR as the value at risk (VaR) of financial institutions conditional on other institutions being in distress. The increase of CoVaR relative to VaR measures spillover risk among institutions. We estimate CoVaR using quantile regressions and document significant CoVaR increases among...

We decompose the time series of equity market risk into short- and long-run volatility components. Both components have negative and highly significant prices of risk in the cross section of equity returns. A three-factor model with the market return and the two volatility components compares...

We reconsider the role of financial intermediaries in monetary economics. We explore the hypothesis that financial intermediaries drive the business cycle by way of their role in determining the price of risk. In this framework, balance sheet quantities emerge as a key indicator of risk appetite...