The dangers of shouting ``fire'' in a crowded theater are well understood, but the dangers of rushing to the exit in the financial markets are more complex. Yet, the two events share several features, and I analyze why people crowd into theaters and trades, why they run, what determines the...

This analysis tests the price discovery relationship between sovereign CDS premia and bond yield spreads on the same reference entity. The theoretical no-arbitrage relationship between the two credit spreads is confronted with daily data from six Euro-area countries over the period 2004-2011. As...

This paper proposes a new approach for modeling investor fear after rare disasters. The key element is to take into account that investors' information about fundamentals driving rare downward jumps in the dividend process is not perfect. Bayesian learning implies that beliefs about the...

This paper describes the equilibrium of a discrete-time exchange economy in which consumers with arbitrary subjective discount factors and quasi-homothetic period utility functions follow linear Markov consumption and portfolio strategies. Explicit expressions are given for state prices and...

This Paper develops a continuous-time two-sector model to study the economic effects of an import quota during the period of time over which it is imposed. One of the sectors is protected by a quota, which in our set-up manifests itself as an integral constraint on the flow of imports of the...

Portfolio and stochastic discount factor (SDF) frontiers are usually regarded as dual objects, and researchers sometimes use one to answer questions about the other. However, the introduction of conditioning information and active portfolio strategies alters this relationship. For instance, the...

We report on six large-scale financial markets experiments that were designed to test two of the most basic propositions of modern asset pricing theory, namely, that the interaction between risk averse agents in a competitive market leads to equilibration, and that, in equilibrium, risk premia...

This Paper examines the price differences between very liquid on-the-run US Treasury securities and less liquid off-the-run securities over the entire on/off cycle. Unlike previous studies, by comparing pairs of securities as their relative liquidity varies over time, we can disregard any...

Insider trading in the credit derivatives market has become a significant concern for regulators and participants. This paper attempts to quantify the problem. Using news reflected in the stock market as a benchmark for public information, we report evidence of significant incremental...