This article provides a stochastic valuation framework for bond and stock returns that builds on three different pricing traditions: affine models of the term structure, present-value pricing of equities, and consumption-based asset pricing. Our model provides a more general application of the...

The VIX, the stock market option-based implied volatility, strongly co-moves with measures of the monetary policy stance. When decomposing the VIX into two components, a proxy for risk aversion and expected stock market volatility ("uncertainty"), we find that a lax monetary policy decreases...