In affine asset pricing models, the innovation to the pricing kernel is a function of innovations to current and expected future values of an economic state variable, for example consumption growth, aggregate market returns, or short-term interest rates. The impulse response of this priced...

In the period 1996-2014, the average investor in the variance swap market was indifferent to news about future variance at horizons ranging from 1 month to 14 years. It is only purely transitory and unexpected realized variance that were priced. These results present a challenge to most...