Our new model of consumption-based habit formation preferences generates loglinear, homoskedastic macroeconomic dynamics and time-varying risk premia on bonds and stocks. Consumers' first-order condition for the real risk-free interest rate takes the form of an exactly loglinear consumption...

In this paper, we consider the measurement and pricing of distress risk.We present a model of corporate failure in which accounting and market-based measures forecast the likelihood of future financial distress. Our best model is more accurate than leading alternative measures of corporate...

Within the last five years, Canada, Sweden and New Zealand have joined the ranks of the United Kingdom and other countries in issuing government bonds that are indexed to inflation. Some observers of the experience in these countries have argued that the United States should follow suit. This...

The effect of money stock announcements on the Federal funds rate has been attributed informally to the information conveyed by the announcements about aggregate reserve demand. This "Aggregate Information Hypothesis" explains the effect without reference to Federal Reserve intervention in the...

We show that reaching for yield---a tendency to take more risk when the real interest rate declines while the risk premium remains constant---results from imposing a sustainable spending constraint on an otherwise standard infinitely lived investor with power utility. When the interest rate is...

We study mortgage design features aimed at stabilizing the macroeconomy. We model overlapping generations of mortgage borrowers and an infinitely lived risk-averse representative mortgage lender. Mortgages are priced using an equilibrium pricing kernel derived from the lender's endogenous...

The cash flows of growth stocks are particularly sensitive to temporary movements in aggregate stock prices (driven by movements in the equity risk premium), while the cash flows of value stocks are particularly sensitive to permanent movements in aggregate stock prices (driven by market-wide...

A number of variables are correlated with subsequent returns on the aggregate US stock market in the 20th Century. Some of these variables are stock market valuation ratios, others reflect patterns in corporate finance or the levels of short and long-term interest rates. Amit Goyal and Ivo Welch...

This paper explains the size and value quot;anomaliesquot; in stock returns using an economically motivated two-beta model. We break the CAPMbeta of a stock with the market portfolio into two components, one reflecting news about the market's future cash flows and one reflecting news about the...

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