A common European bond would yield a common European Monetary Union risk free rate. We present tentative estimates of this common risk free for the European Monetary Union countries from 2004 to 2009 using variables motivated by a theoretical portfolio selection model. First, we analyze the...

We analyze the Brazilian experience in the 1990s to assess the effectiveness of controls on capital inflows in restricting financial inflows and changing their composition towards long term flows. Econometric exercises (VARs) showed that controls on capital inflows were effective in deterring...

The potential for rare macroeconomic disasters may explain an array of asset-pricing puzzles. Our empirical studies of these extreme events rely on long-term data now covering 28 countries for consumption and 40 for GDP. A baseline model calibrated with observed peak-to-trough disaster sizes...

We present a tractable, linear model for the simultaneous pricing of stock and bond returns that incorporates stochastic risk aversion. In this model, analytic solutions for endogenous stock and bond prices and returns are readily calculated. After estimating the parameters of the model by the...

Using a large panel of firms across the world from 1991-2006, we show that the median foreign firm has lower idiosyncratic risk than a comparable U.S. firm. Country characteristics help explain variation in the level of idiosyncratic risk, but less so than firm characteristics. Idiosyncratic...

We identify the relative importance of changes in the conditional variance of fundamentals (which we call %u201Cuncertainty%u201D) and changes in risk aversion (%u201Crisk%u201D for short) in the determination of the term structure, equity prices and risk premiums. Theoretically, we introduce...

The U.S. is currently engulfed in the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. A key structural factor behind this crisis is the large demand for riskless assets from the rest of the world. In this paper we present a model to show how such demand not only triggered a sharp rise...

This paper considers the meaning of domestic and international systemic risk. It examines scenarios that have been adduced as creating systemic risk both within countries and among them. It distinguishes between the concepts of real and pseudo-systemic risk. We examine the history of episodes...

Although the effects of economic news announcements on asset prices are well established, these relationships are unlikely to be stable. This paper documents the time variation in the responses of yield curves and exchange rates using high frequency data from January 2000 through August 2011....