In standard models wages are too volatile and returns too smooth. We make wages sticky through infrequent resetting, resulting in both (i) smoother wages and (ii) volatile returns. Furthermore, the model produces other puzzling features of financial data: (iii) high Sharpe Ratios, (iv) low and...

Correlations of monthly, quarterly and annual consumption growth rates, calculated from novel weekly Gallup consumption data, with the equity premium are high – 13%, 44% and 54% at monthly, quarterly and yearly frequency. The power utility consumption CAPM prices the sample average annual...

This paper studies how flexible labor decisions affect asset pricing in a Real Business Cycle model. It uses Jaimovich-Rebelo preferences with internal habits in consumption and distinguishes between two income effect channels:(i) the `habit income effect' channel and (ii) the `separability...

In this paper we use the property that certainty equivalence, as implied by a first-order approximation to the solution of stochastic discrete-time models, breaks in its equivalent continuous-time version. We study the extent to which a first-order approximated solution built by perturbation...

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...

We use a fully-specified neoclassical model augmented with costly external equity as a laboratory to study the relations between stock returns and equity financing decisions. Simulations show that the model can simultaneously and in many cases quantitatively reproduce: procyclical equity issuance;...

This paper introduces the rational inattention hypothesis (RI) -- that agents process information subject to finite channel constraints -- into a stochastic growth model with permanent technology shocks. We find that RI raises consumption volatility relative to output by introducing an...

This paper extends the standard Mehra-Prescott one-good, pure exchange economy to the case where agents are assumed to be in ignorance of the true transition probabilities of the growth rate of output and to learn them using bayes rule. The main conclusion is that the proposed bayes model yields...

We model investment options as intangible capital in a production economy in which younger vintages of assets in place have lower exposure to aggregate productivity risk. In equilibrium, physical capital requires a substantially higher expected return than intangible capital. Quantitatively, our...

This paper develops a production-based asset pricing model with two types of agents and concentrated ownership of physical capital. A temporary but persistent "distribution shock" causes the income share of capital owners to fluctuate in a procyclical manner, consistent with U.S. data. The...