We propose two metrics for asset pricing models and apply them to representative agent models with recursive preferences, habits, and jumps. The metrics describe the pricing kernel's dispersion (the entropy of the title) and dynamics (time dependence, a measure of how entropy varies over...

Identification problems arise in New Keynesian and macro-finance models when the Taylor rule includes both responses to observable variables like inflation and output, and a shock unseen by economists. Identification of the rule's parameters requires additional restrictions on this unobserved...

High interest rate currencies tend to appreciate. This is the uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) puzzle. It is primarily a statement about short-term interest rates and how they are related to exchange rates. Short-term interest rates are strongly affected by monetary policy. The UIP puzzle,...

Mathematical models of bond pricing are used by both academics and Wall Street practitioners, with practitioners introducing time-dependent parameters to fit arbitrage-free models to selected asset prices. We show, in a simple one-factor setting, that the ability of such models to reproduce a...

We use a fractional difference model to reconcile two features of yields on US government bonds with modem asset pricing theory: the persistence of the short rate and variability of the long end of the yield curve. We suggest that this process might arise from the response of the heterogeneous...

We provide a user's guide to exotic' preferences: nonlinear time aggregators, departures from expected utility, preferences over time with known and unknown probabilities, risk-sensitive and robust control, hyperbolic' discounting, and preferences over sets ( temptations'). We apply each to a...

We inject aggregate uncertainty - risk and ambiguity - into an otherwise standard business cycle model and describe its consequences. We find that increases in uncertainty generally reduce consumption, but they do not account, in this model, for either the magnitude or the persistence of the...

Prices of riskfree bonds in any arbitrage-free environment are governed by a pricing kernel: given a kernel, we can compute prices of bonds of any maturity we like. We use observed prices of multi-period bonds to estimate, in a log-linear theoretical setting, the pricing kernel that gave rise to...

We use prices of equity index options to quantify the impact of extreme events on asset returns. We define extreme events as departures from normality of the log of the pricing kernel and summarize their impact with high-order cumulants: skewness, kurtosis, and so on. We show that high-order...

We explore the term structures of claims to a variety of cash flows, namely, U.S. government bonds (claims to dollars), foreign government bonds (claims to foreign currency), inflation-adjusted bonds (claims to the price index), and equity (claims to future equity indexes or dividends). The...