I provide an explanation for the puzzle of slow recovery of aggregate real variables from financial crises. My model features a representative investor who finances firms with optimal long-term contracts derived from a moral hazard problem. An increase in uncertainty about firm-productivity...

We provide firm-level evidence that Federal Open Market Committee announcements have real effects by changing expectations of firm profitability. We use an existing decomposition of a monetary policy shock into a central bank information component (CBI) and a conventional monetary component...

We provide a theoretical model linking firm characteristics and expected returns. The key ingredient of our model is technological shocks embodied in new capital (IST shocks), which affect the profitability of new investments. Firms' exposure to IST shocks is endogenously determined by the...

We explore the impact of investment-specific technology (IST) shocks on the crosssection of stock returns. IST shocks reflect technological advances embodied in new capital goods. Using a structural model, we show that IST shocks have a differential effect on the two fundamental components of...

Average return differences among firms sorted on valuation ratios, past investment, prof-itability, market beta, or idiosyncratic volatility are largely driven by differences in exposures offirms to the same systematic factor related to embodied technology shocks. Using a calibratedstructural...

We provide a theoretical model linking firm characteristics and expected returns. The key ingredient of our model is technological shocks embodied in new capital (IST shocks), which affect the profitability of new investments. Firms' exposure to IST shocks is endogenously determined by the...