Using an extensive Australian sample, we explore two related issues in the context of a default risk asset-pricing factor (DEF) over the business cycle: whether a DEF can explain the size premium in the three-factor Fama–French (FF) model; and whether a DEF has a separate role itself in a...

"The demand for durable goods is more cyclical than that for nondurable goods and services. Consequently, the cash flow and stock returns of durable-good producers are exposed to higher systematic risk. Using the NIPA input-output tables, we construct portfolios of durable-good, nondurable-good,...

Implied volatility indices should have information about risk parameters, once they are cleansed of the influence of normal volatility dynamics and macroeconomic uncertainty. Building on intuition from the dynamic asset pricing literature, we uncover unobserved risk aversion and fundamental...