Risk premia in the stock market are assumed to move with time varying risk. We present a model in which the variance of time excess return of a portfolio depends on a state variable generated by a first-order Markov process. A model in which the realization of the state is known to economic...

Empirical tests of reduced form models of default attribute a large fraction of observed credit spreads to compensation for jump-to-default risk. However, these models preclude a "contagion-risk'' channel, where the aggregate corporate bond index reacts adversely to a credit event. In this...

We consider IPO firms from 1970 to 2001 and examine the evolution of their insider ownership over time to understand better why and how U.S. firms that become widely held do so. In our sample, a majority of firms has insider ownership below 20% after ten years. We find that a firm's stock market...