Starting from an information process governed by a geometric Brownian motion we show that asset returns are predictable if the elasticity of the pricing kernel is not constant. Declining [Increasing] elasticity of the pricing kernel leads to mean reversion and negatively autocorrelated asset...

When banks choose similar investment strategies, the financial system becomes vulnerable to common shocks. Banks decide about their investment strategy ex-ante based on a private belief about the state of the world and a social belief formed from observing the actions of peers. When the social...

This paper introduces a reinforcement learning based approach to compute optimal interest rate reaction functions in terms of fulfilling inflation and output gap targets. The method is generally flexible enough to incorporate restrictions like the zero lower bound, nonlinear economy structures...

Broker-dealer leverage has recently proven to be strongly procyclical, exhibiting impressive explanatory power for a large cross-section of asset returns in the US. In this paper we add empirical evidence to this finding, showing that European and German broker-dealers actively manage their...