This article shows that the "risk premium" shock in Smets and Wouters (2007) can be interpreted as a structural shock to the demand for safe and liquid assets such as short-term US Treasury securities. Several implications of this interpretation are discussed.

This article shows that the "risk premium" shock in Smets and Wouters (2007) can be interpreted as a structural shock to the demand for safe and liquid assets such as short-term US Treasury securities. Several implications of this interpretation are discussed

This paper studies a dynamic equilibrium model of asset prices in a partially observable exchange economy. It shows that the precautionary savings motive in response to estimation uncertainty can dominate the risk aversion effect, resulting in the reduction of the equity premium over short...

This paper examines how financial frictions and policy uncertainty jointly influence firms' investments in pollution abatement. Our data analyses suggest that financially constrained firms are less likely to invest in pollution abatement and are more likely to release toxic pollutants, with this...

We extend the Lucas asset pricing tree economy to a heterogeneous population. Perturbative methods are applied to explicitly calculate the second order response of returns to heterogeneity. We determine the status of various stylized facts. For example, we find that the equity premium always...

This paper formulates and empirically tests a model that describes the balance sheet adjustments of debt and equity financed U.S. nonfinancial enterprises over the twentieth century. In this model asset adjustments change the expected income and operating risk of firms while financing...

The recent political developments in the Middle East have prompted increased scrutiny of the economies of the nations lying in this region. Over the past few months, the financial markets of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have been affected by the speculations that existed before the war in...

This paper proposes a simple generalization of the classical measurement error model, introducing new measurement errors that subtract signal from the true variable of interest, in addition to the usual classical measurement errors (CME) that add noise. The effect on OLS regression of these lack...