We examine asset prices in a representative-agent model of general equilibrium. Assuming only that individuals are risk averse, we determine conditions on the changes in asset risk that are both necessary and sufficient for the asset price to fall. We show that these conditions neither imply,...

The eurozone has a single short-term nominal interest rate, but monetary policy conditions measured by real short-term interest rates varied substantially across countries in the period 2003-2010. We use this cross-country variation in the (local) tightness of monetary policy to examine its...

This paper examines preferences towards particular classes of lottery pairs. We show how concepts such as prudence and temperance can be fully characterized by a preference relation over these lotteries. If preferences are defined in an expected-utility framework with differentiable utility, the...

We decompose the generalized Lorenz order into a size and a distribution component. The former is represented by stochastic dominance, the latter by the standard Lorenz order. We show that it is always possible, given generalized Lorenz dominance between two distributions F and G, to find...

Consider a simple two-state risk with equal probabilities for the two states. In particular, assume that the random wealth variable Xi dominates Yi via ith-order stochastic dominance for i = M,N. We show that the 50-50 lottery [XN + YM, YN + XM] dominates the lottery [XN + XM, YN + YM] via (N +...

How does risk affect saving? Empirical work typically examines the effects of detectible differences in risk within the data. How these differences affect saving in theoretical models depends on the metric one uses for risk. For labor-income risk, second-degree increases in risk require prudence...

The efficient rate of return of a zero-coupon bond with maturity <i>t</i> is determined by our expectations about the mean (+), variance (-) and skewness (+) of the growth of aggregate consumption between 0 and <i>t</i>. The shape of the yield curve is thus determined by how these moments vary with <i>t</i>. We...

We sort currencies by countries’ consumption growth over the past four quarters. Currency portfolios of countries experiencing consumption booms have higher Sharpe ratios than those of countries going through a consumption-based recession. A carry strategy that goes short in countries that are...

This study extends standard C-CAPM by including two additional factors related to firm size (SMB) and book-to-market value ratio (HML) – the Fama-French factors. CCAPM is least able to price firms with low book-to-market ratios. The explanation of these returns, as well as the returns on the...

This article contributes to the literature on stock market integration by developing and estimating a capital asset pricing model with segmentation effects in order to assess stock market segmentation and its effects on risk premia at the regional level. We show that the estimated degrees of...