This paper studies the impact of financial sector size and leverage on business cycles and risk-free rates dynamics. We model a general equilibrium productive economy where financial intermediaries provide costly risk mitigation to households by pooling the idiosyncratic risks of their...

Several theoretical studies suggest that coordination problems can cause arbitrageur crowding to push asset prices beyond fundamental value as investors feedback trade on each others' demands. Using this logic we develop a crowding model for momentum returns that predicts tail risk when...

Betting-against-risk (BAR) anomaly portfolios formed on past beta and idiosyncratic / total volatility produce large CAPM alphas. But these return spreads are well explained by the Fama--French six-factor model (FF6). Operating profitability, investment, and momentum factors subsume the low-risk...

We study the relationship between intermediation efficiency and the macroeconomic dynamics within a tractable real business cycle model with financial frictions. Households finance firms but, due to restricted equity market participation, cannot pool their idiosyncratic risks. Financial...

We examine the time-series risk-return trade-off among equity factors. We obtain a positive trade-off for profitability and investment factors. Such relationship subsists conditional on the covariance with the market factor, which represents consistency with Merton's ICAPM. Critically, we obtain...

We examine the time-series risk-return trade-off among equity factors. We obtain a positive trade-off for profitability and investment factors. Such relationship subsists conditional on the covariance with the market factor, which represents consistency with Merton's ICAPM. Critically, we obtain...

We examine the time-series risk-return trade-off among equity factors. We obtain a positive trade-off for profitability and investment factors. Such relationship subsists conditional on the covariance with the market factor, which represents consistency with Merton's ICAPM. Critically, we obtain...

We examine the time-series risk-return trade-off among equity factors. We obtain a positive trade-off for profitability and investment factors. Such relationship subsists conditional on the covariance with the market factor, which represents consistency with Merton's ICAPM. Critically, we obtain...

We examine the risk-return trade-off among alternative equity factors. We obtain a positivein-sample trade-off for the pro fitability (RMW) and investment (CMA/IA) factors of Famaand French (2015) and Hou, Xue, and Zhang (2015), while for the market and momentumfactors there is a negative...

Through the lens of market participants' objective to minimize counterparty risk, we provide an explanation for the reluctance to clear derivative trades in the absence of a central clearing obligation. We develop a comprehensive understanding of the benefits and potential pitfalls with respect...