We survey literature on ambiguity with an emphasis on recent applications in macroeconomics and finance. Like risk, ambiguity leads to cautious behavior and uncertainty premia in asset markets. Unlike risk, ambiguity can generate first order welfare losses. As a result, precautionary behavior...

This paper investigates the effect of inflation uncertainty on the portfolio behavior of households and the equilibrium structure of capitol market rates. The principal findings regarding portfolio behavior are: (1.) In the presence of inflation uncertainty, households will have an...

Uncertainty in both financial markets and the real economy rises sharply during recessions. We develop a model of informational interdependence between financial markets and the real economy, linking uncertainty to information production and aggregate economic activities. We argue that there...

This paper introduces a new financial vulnerability index for emerging market economies by exploiting key differences in their business cycles relative to those of advanced economies. Information on the domestic price of risk, cost of dollar hedging and market-based measures of bank...

How does financial integration impact capital accumulation, current-account dynamics, and cross-country inequality? We investigate this question within a two-country, general-equilibrium, incomplete-markets model that focuses on the importance of idiosyncratic entrepreneurial risk-- a risk that...

The VIX, the stock market option-based implied volatility, strongly co-moves with measures of the monetary policy stance. When decomposing the VIX into two components, a proxy for risk aversion and expected stock market volatility ("uncertainty"), we find that a lax monetary policy decreases...

This paper provides a general framework for analyzing the optimal degree and form of financial integration. Full integration is not in general optimal: faced with a choice between two polar regimes, full integration or autarky, autarky may be superior. The intuition is simple: if underlying...

The confluence of three trends in the U.S. residential housing market---rising home prices, declining interest rates, and near-frictionless refinancing opportunities---led to vastly increased systemic risk in the financial system. Individually, each of these trends is benign, but when they occur...

The Panic of 2007-2008 was a run on the sale and repurchase market (the "repo" market), which is a very large, short-term market that provides financing for a wide range of securitization activities and financial institutions. Repo transactions are collateralized, frequently with securitized...