Risk premia in the consumption capital asset pricing model depend on preferences and dividend. We develop a decomposition which allows a separate treatment of both components. We show that preferences alone determine the risk-return tradeoff measured by the Sharpe-ratio. In general, the...

The riskless nature in real terms of inflation-linked bonds has led to the conclusion that inflation-linked bonds should constitute a substantial part of the optimal investment portfolio of long-term investors.This conclusion is reached in models where investors do not receive labor income...

We study the bond yield conundrum in a macro-finance framework. Building upon a exible and non-structural macro-finance model, we test the hypothesis that the bond yield conundrum is connected to various sources of uncertainty in the financial markets. Moreover we explicitly test for the role of...

A major lesson of the recent financial crisis is that the interbank lending market is crucial for banks facing large uncertainty regarding their liquidity needs. This paper studies the efficiency of the interbank lending market in allocating funds. We consider two different types of liquidity...

This paper explores the interaction between retirement flexibility and portfolio choice in an overlapping-generations model. We analyse this interaction both in a partial-equilibrium and general-equilibrium setting. Retirement flexibility is often seen as a hedge against capital-market risks...

Theory predicts that under certain restrictions on preferences prudent consumers will allocate relatively more funds to riskless assets when there is uninsurable background risk. This paper analyzes empirically the relevance of precautionary motives for the structure of household wealth. To this...

In this paper we empirically compare different term structure models when it comes to the pricing and hedging of caps and swaptions.We analyze the influence of the number of factors on the pricing and hedging results, and investigate which type of data -interest rate data or derivative price...

In this paper we empirically analyze the impact of transaction costs on the performance of affine interest rate models. We test the implied (no arbitrage) Euler restrictions, and we calculate the specification error bound of Hansen and Jagannathan to measure the extent to which a model is...

In this paper we empirically analyze and compare the Libor and Swap Market Models, developed by Brace, Gatarek, and Musiela (1997) and Jamshidian (1997), using paneldata on prices of US caplets and swaptions.A Libor Market Model can directly be calibrated to observed prices of caplets, whereas a...

In this paper we estimate and interpret the factors that jointly determine bond returns of different maturities in the US, Germany and Japan.We analyze both currency-hedged and unhedged bond returns.For currency-hedged bond returns, we find that five factors explain 96.5% of the variation of...