This paper studies the asset pricing implications of Bayesian learning about the parameters, states, and models determining aggregate consumption dynamics. Our approach is empirical and focuses on the quantitative implications of learning in real-time using post World War II consumption data. We...

Parameter learning strongly amplifies the impact of macro shocks on marginal utility when the representative agent has a preference for early resolution of uncertainty. This occurs as rational belief updating generates subjective long-run consumption risks. We consider general equilibrium models...

Motivated by the literature on limits-to-arbitrage, we build an equilibrium model of commodity markets in which speculators are capital constrained, and commodity producers have hedging demands for commodity futures. Increases (decreases) in producers' hedging demand (speculators' risk-capacity)...

We examine how long-run consumption risk arises endogenously in a standard production economy model where the representative agent has Epstein--Zin preferences. We show that even when technology growth is i.i.d., optimal consumption smoothing induces long-run risk--highly persistent variation in...

We build an equilibrium model of commodity markets in which speculators are capital constrained, and commodity producers have hedging demands for commodity futures. Increases in producers' hedging demand or speculators' capital constraints increase hedging costs via price-pressure on futures....

This paper proposes a representative agent habit-formation model where preferences are defined for both luxury goods and basic goods. The model matches the equity risk premium, risk-free rate, and volatilities. From the intratemporal first-order condition, one can substitute out basic good...

This paper evaluates the role of various volatility specifications, such as multiple stochastic volatility (SV) factors and jump components, in appropriate modeling of equity return distributions. We use estimation technology that facilitates non-nested model comparisons and use a long data set...

We use prices of equity index options to quantify the impact of extreme events on asset returns. We define extreme events as departures from normality of the log of the pricing kernel and summarize their impact with high-order cumulants: skewness, kurtosis, and so on. We show that high-order...