We construct a no-arbitrage term structure model with jumps in the entire state vector at deterministic times but of random magnitudes. Jump risk premia are allowed for. We show that the model implies a closed-form representation of yields as a time-inhomogenous affine function of the state...

We develop a nonlinear state-space model that captures the joint dynamics of consumption, dividend growth, and asset returns. Our model consists of an economy containing a common predictable component for consumption and dividend growth and multiple stochastic volatility processes. The...

The equity premium, namely the expected return on the aggregate stock market less the government bill rate, is of central importance to the portfolio allocation of individuals, to the investment decisions of firms, and to model calibration and testing. This quantity is usually estimated from the...

The prevailing view in finance is that the evidence for long-horizon stock return predictability is significantly stronger than that for short horizons. We show that for persistent regressors, a characteristic of most of the predictive variables used in the literature, the estimators are almost...

We investigate whether bonds span the volatility risk in the U.S. Treasury market, as predicted by most 'affine' term structure models. To this end, we construct powerful and model-free empirical measures of the quadratic yield variation for a cross-section of fixed-maturity zero-coupon bonds...

Many applications in financial economics use data series with different starting or ending dates. This paper describes estimation methods, based on the generalized method of moments (GMM), which make use of all available data for each moment condition. We introduce two asymptotically equivalent...

This paper explores two perspectives on the rational expectations hypothesis. One perspective is that of economic agents in such a model, who form inferences about the future using probabilities implied by the model. The other is that of an econometrician who makes inferences about the...

It is a common practice in finance to estimate volatility from the sum of frequently-sampled squared returns. However market microstructure poses challenges to this estimation approach, as evidenced by recent empirical studies in finance. This work attempts to lay out theoretical grounds that...

This paper provides closed-form expansions for the transition density and likelihood function of arbitrary multivariate diffusions. The expansions are based on a Hermite series, whose coefficients are calculated explicitly by exploiting the special structure afforded by the diffusion hypothesis....

Economists have long recognized that investors care differently about downside losses versus upside gains. Agents who place greater weight on downside risk demand additional compensation for holding stocks with high sensitivities to downside market movements. We show that the cross-section of...