This paper is concerned with specification for modelling financial leverage effect in the context of stochastic volatility (SV) models. Two alternative specifications co-exist in the literature. One is the Euler approximation to the well known continuous time SV model with leverage effect and...

This paper is concerned with specification for modelling financial leverage effect in the context of stochastic volatility (SV) models. Two alternative specifications co-exist in the literature. One is the Euler approximation to the well known continuous time SV model with leverage effect and...

We study how heterogeneous beliefs affect returns and examine whether heterogeneous beliefs are a priced factor in traditional asset pricing models. To accomplish this task, we suggest new empirical measures based on the disagreement among analysts about expected (short-term and long-term)...

Most investors purchase securities knowing they will resell those securities in the future. Uncertainty about the preferences of future trading counter-parties causes randomness in future resale prices that we call liquidity risk. It is natural to suppose that investors are asymmetrically...

``Limits of Arbitrage" theories require that the marginal investor in a particular asset market be a specialized arbitrageur. Then the constraints faced by this arbitrageur (i.e. capital constraints) feed through into asset prices. We examine the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) market in this...

This paper examines the long-run dynamics and the cyclical structure of the US stock market using fractional integration techniques. We implement a version of the tests of Robinson (1994a), which enables one to consider unit (or fractional) roots both at the zero (long-run) and at the cyclical...

Promising emerging equity markets often witness investment herds and frenzies, accompanied by an abundance of media coverage. Complementarity in information acquisition can explain these anomalies. Because information has a high fixed cost of production, its equilibrium price is low when...

Many observers were surprised by the depreciation of the euro after its launch in 1999. Handicapped by a short sample, explanations tended to appeal to anecdotes and lessons learned from the experiences of other currencies. Now sample sizes are just becoming large enough to permit reasonable...

I develop a matching model with heterogeneous workers, firms, and worker-firm matches, and apply it to longitudinal linked data on employers and employees. Workers vary in their marginal product when employed and their value of leisure when unemployed. Firms vary in their marginal product and...

The usual index of leading indicators has constant weights on its components and is therefore implicitly premised on the assumption that the dynamical properties of the economy remain the same over time and across phases of the business cycle. We explore the possibility that the business cycle...