We model how investors allocate between asset managers, managers choose their portfolios of multiple securities, fees are set, and security prices are determined. The optimal passive portfolio is linked to the “expected market portfolio,” while the optimal active portfolio has elements of...

"We present a model in which some investors are prohibited from using leverage and other investors' leverage is limited by margin requirements. The former investors bid up high-beta assets while the latter agents trade to profit from this, but must de-lever when they hit their margin...

When the government commits to a debt policy, the future value of government primary surpluses at all horizons is dictated by the debt dynamics under the risk-neutral measure. We compare the present discounted value of future surpluses implied by the U.S. federal government debt dynamics in a...

We present a model in which some investors are prohibited from using leverage and other investors' leverage is limited by margin requirements. The former investors bid up high-beta assets while the latter agents trade to profit from this, but must de-lever when they hit their margin constraints....

Many financial instruments are designed with embedded leverage such as options and leveraged exchange traded funds (ETFs). Embedded leverage alleviates investors' leverage constraints and, therefore, we hypothesize that embedded leverage lowers required returns. Consistent with this hypothesis,...

The literature assessing whether mutual fund managers have skill typically regards skill as an immutable attribute of the manager or the fund. Yet, many measures of skill, such as returns, alphas, and measures of stock-picking and market-timing, appear to vary over the business cycle. Because...

Low realizations of the bond factors, typically at the onset of recessions, coincide with low value-minus-growth returns, low future dividend growth on value-minus-growth, and low future economic growth. This evidence supports the view that the business cycle is a priced state variable in stock...