We show that firms' idiosyncratic volatility obeys a strong factor structure and that shocks to the common factor in idiosyncratic volatility (CIV) are priced. Stocks in the lowest CIV-beta quintile earn average returns 5.4% per year higher than those in the highest quintile. The CIV factor...

This paper analyzes optimal portfolio choice and consumption with stochastic volatility in incomplete markets. Using the Duffie-Epstein (1992) formulation of recursive utility in continuous time, it shows that the optimal portfolio demand for stocks under stochastic volatility varies strongly...

We study the pricing of uncertainty shocks using a wide-ranging set of options that reveal premia for macroeconomic risks. Portfolios hedging macro uncertainty have historically earned zero or even significantly positive returns, while those exposed to the realization of large shocks have earned...

This paper proposes and implements a new approach to a classic unsolved problem in financial economics: the optimal consumption and portfolio choice problem of a long-lived investor facing time-varying investment opportunities. The investor is assumed to be infinitely-lived, to have recursive...

This paper conducts a theoretical and empirical investigation of global portfolio diversification for long-horizon investors in the presence of permanent cash flow shocks and transitory discount rate shocks to asset prices and returns. An increase in the cross-country correlations of cash flow...