This paper studies whether fiscal policy satisfies a borrowing constraint. Direct tests of the present-value constraint are rare, despite widespread discussion of the feasibility of current policy. We examine monthly data on Canadian federal government finances using tests for cointegration. We...

Extreme market outcomes are often followed by a lack of liquidity and a lack of trade. This market collapse seems particularly acute for markets where traders rely heavily on a specific empirical model such as in derivative markets like the market for mortgage backed securities or credit...

Recent developments in intertemporal asset pricing theory focus on two sets of fundamental determinants of asset returns. Models with complete markets emphasize aggregate variables such as per capita consumption. Such models have not performed well empirically. Models with incomplete markets...

Prices of riskfree bonds in any arbitrage-free environment are governed by a pricing kernel: given a kernel, we can compute prices of bonds of any maturity we like. We use observed prices of multi-period bonds to estimate, in a log- linear theoretical setting, the pricing kernel that gave rise...

We use a fractional difference model to reconcile two features of yields on US government bonds with modem asset pricing theory: the persistence of the short rate and variability of the long end of the yield curve. We suggest that this process might arise from the response of the heterogeneous...

We provide an axiomatic model of preferences over atemporal risks that generalizes Gul (1991) A Theory of Disappointment Aversion' by allowing risk aversion to be first order' at locations in the state space that do not correspond to certainty. Since the lotteries being valued by an agent in an...

We summarize the class of recursive preferences. These preferences fit naturally with recursive solution methods and hold the promise of generating new insights into familiar problems. Portfolio choice is used as an example

We explore the practitioners methodology of choosing time-dependent parameters to fit a bond model to selected asset prices, and show that it can lead to systematic mispricing of some assets. The Black-Derman-Toy model, for example, is likely to overprice call options on long bonds when interest...