We propose a model where monetary policy is the key determinant of aggregate asset prices (financial conditions). Spending decisions are made by a group of agents ("households") that respond to aggregate asset prices, but with noise, delays, and inertia. Asset pricing is determined by a...

We review the literature on multi-horizon currency risk premiums. We show how the multi-horizon implications arise from the classic present-value relationship. We further show how these implications manifest themselves in the interaction between bond and currency risk premiums. This link is...

The past half-century has seen major shifts in inflation expectations, how inflation comoves with the business cycle, and how stocks comove with Treasury bonds. Against this backdrop, we review the economic channels and empirical evidence on how inflation is priced in financial markets. Not all...

Target Date Funds (TDFs) provide retirement investors, many of whom are unsophisticated or inattentive, with age-appropriate exposures to different asset classes like stocks and bonds. To maintain exposures, TDFs trade actively against market returns, buying stock funds when the stock market...

This paper reviews recent developments in macro and finance on the relationship between financial risk and the real economy. We focus on three specific topics: the term structure of uncertainty, time variation - and specifically the long-term decline - in the variance risk premium, and time...

This paper analyzes the performance of the commercial mortgage-backed security (CMBS) market before and during the recent financial crisis. Using a comprehensive sample of CMBS deals from 1996 to 2008, we show that (unlike the residential mortgage market) the loans underlying CMBS did not...

Corporate credit lines are drawn more heavily when funding markets are more stressed. This covariance elevates expected bank funding costs. We show that credit supply is dampened by the associated debt-overhang cost to bank shareholders. Until 2022, this impact was reduced by linking the...

Do periods of persistently loose monetary policy increase financial fragility and the likelihood of a financial crisis? This is a central question for policymakers, yet the literature does not provide systematic empirical evidence about this link at the aggregate level. In this paper we fill...

This paper shows that foreign term spreads constructed from bond yields of non-U.S. G-7 constituents predict future U.S. recessions and that foreign term spreads are stronger predictors of U.S. recessions occurring within the next year than U.S. term spreads. U.S. and foreign term spreads are...

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in the moments of the yield curve (or alternatively, the term spread) as a predictor of future economic activity, defined as either recessions, or industrial production growth. In this paper, we re-examine the evidence for this predictor for the...