This chapter reviews the behavior of financial asset prices in relation to consumption. The chapter lists some important stylized facts that characterize U.S. data, and relates them to recent developments in equilibrium asset pricing theory. Data from other countries are examined to see which...

This paper builds a real-options model of the firm with stochastic volatility to shed new light on the value premium, financial distress, and credit spread puzzles. Since the equity of growth firms and financially distressed firms have embedded options, such securities hedge against volatility...

In standard models wages are too volatile and returns too smooth. We make wages sticky through infrequent resetting, resulting in both (i) smoother wages and (ii) volatile returns. Furthermore, the model produces other puzzling features of financial data: (iii) high Sharpe Ratios, (iv) low and...

In standard models wages are too volatile and returns too smooth. We make wages sticky through infrequent resetting, resulting in both (i) smoother wages and (ii) volatile returns. Furthermore, the model produces other puzzling features of financial data: (iii) high Sharpe Ratios, (iv) low and...

In standard production models wage volatility is far too high and equity volatility is far too low. A simple modification - sticky wages due to infrequent resetting together with a CES production function - leads to both (i) smoother wages and (ii) higher equity volatility. Furthermore, the...

In this paper we address three main objections of behavioral finance to the theory of rational finance, considered as “anomalies” the theory of rational finance cannot explain: (i) Predictability of asset returns; (ii) The Equity Premium; (iii) The Volatility Puzzle. We offer resolutions of...

We develop a novel measure of volatility pass-through to assess international propagation of output volatility shocks to macroeconomic aggregates, equity prices,and currencies. An increase in country's output volatility is associated with adecrease in its output, consumption, and net exports....

The structural uncertainty model with Bayesian learning, advanced by Weitzman (2007), provides a framework for gauging the effect of structural uncertainty on asset prices and risk premiums, and has quite a few appealing attributes. In this paper, we provide an operational version of his...