It is often useful to price a given asset by reference to observed prices of other assets rather than construct full-fledged economic models that can price any asset. This approach breaks down if one cannot find a perfect replicating portfolio. We impose weak economic restrictions to derive...

We present a consumption-based model that explains a wide variety of dynamic asset pricing phenomena, including the procyclical variation of stock prices, the long-horizon predictability of excess stock returns, and the countercyclical variation of stock market volatility. The model captures...

I examine a factor pricing model for stock returns. The factors are returns on physical investment, inferred from investment data via a production function. I examine the model's ability to explain variation in expected returns across asset and over time. The model is not rejected. It performs...

Will the stock market provide high returns in the future as it has in the past? The average US stock return in the postwar period has been about 8% above treasury bill rates. But that average is poorly measured: The standard confidence interval extends from 3% to 13%. Furthermore, expected...

To question the statistical significance of return predictability, we cannot specify a null that simply turns off that predictability, leaving dividend growth predictability at its essentially zero sample value. If neither returns nor dividend growth are predictable, then the dividend-price...

If stocks go up, investors may want to rebalance their portfolios. But investors cannot all rebalance. Expected returns may need to change so that the average investor is still happy to hold the market portfolio despite its changed composition. In this way, simple market clearing can give rise...

This paper measures the mean, standard deviation, alpha and beta of venture capital investments, using a maximum likelihood estimate that corrects for selection bias. Since firms go public when they have achieved a good return, estimates that do not correct for selection bias are optimistic.The...

The fiscal theory says that the price level is determined by the ratio of nominal debt to the present value of real primary surpluses. I analyze long-term debt and optimal policy in the fiscal theory. I find that the maturity structure of the debt matters. For example, it determines whether news...

Asset returns, it turns out, do not follow the Capital Asset Pricing Model, and are somewhat predictable over time. I survey and interpret the large body of recent work that adapts traditional portfolio theory to answer, what should an investor do about these new facts in finance? I survey the...

Financial innovation challenges the foundations of monetary theory, and standard monetary theory has not been very successful at describing the history of U.S. inflation. Motivated by these observations, I ask: Can we understand the history of U.S. inflation using a framework that ignores...