I analyze a model in a simple representative-agent economy with one risky and one riskless asset, populated by habit-forming consumer-investors. These consumer-investors exhibit nonaddictive habit formation in the sense that the current consumption rate of the consumer-investors can fall below...

Researchers have reported mispricing in index options markets. This study further examines the efficiency of the S&P 500 index options market by testing theoretical pricing relationships implied by no-arbitrage conditions. The effect of a traded stock basket, Standard and Poor's Depository...

This paper tests the approach of Madan and Milne (1994) and its extension in Abken, Madan, and Ramamurtie (1996) for pricing contingent claims as elements of a separable Hilbert space. We specialize the Hilbert space basis to the family of Hermite polynomials and test the model on S&P 500 index...

We examine the distribution of returns in new industries to determine whether stocks in new industries are similar to lottery tickets. We focus on one characteristic of lottery tickets: negative expected returns. We examine data from the United States on sellers of own-brand personal computers,...

Financial markets are central to the transmission of uncertainty shocks. This paper documents a new aspect of the interaction between the two by showing that uncertainty shocks have radically different macroeconomic implications depending on the state financial markets are in when they occur....

I develop a method to measure and separate the production misallocation caused by failures in factor markets versus financial markets. When I apply the method to rice farming villages in Thailand I find surprisingly little misallocation. Optimal reallocation would increase output in most...

Up to the financial slump of the second quarter of 2008 commodity prices grew fast for several consecutive years in a highly volatile context. Recent commodity fluctuations have raised both policy concerns and a prolific academic debate. This paper offers a coherent theoretical and empirical...

This paper presents a model comparing the optimal degree of asset class diversification abroad by a central bank and a sovereign wealth fund. We show that if the central bank manages its foreign asset holdings in order to meet balance of payments needs, particularly in reducing the probability...

Hedge fund managers differ in ability and investors want to distinguish good ones from bad. Via the design of their investment strategies, better fund managers want to ease this inference problem while worse fund managers want to complicate it. We impose only the minimal restrictions on the...

Entrepreneurs need cash to finance their real investments. Since cash is costly to hold, entrepreneurs will underinvest. If entrepreneurs can access financial markets prior to learning about an investment opportunity, they can sell some of their less liquid assets for cash and, as a result,...