Standard factor pricing models do not capture well the common time-series or cross-sectional variation in average returns of financial stocks. We propose a five-factor asset pricing model that complements the standard Fama and French (1993) three-factor model with a financial sector ROE factor...

Standard risk factors can be hedged with minimal reduction in average returns. Stocks with low factor-exposure have similar performance relative to stocks with high factor-exposure, hence a long-short portfolio hedges factor risk with little reduction in expected returns. This is true for both...

I find that an asset's expected return is largely explained by its covariance with intermediary leverage for a broad cross-section of returns. A one-factor leverage model performs as well as standard multi-factor models on most dimensions and in particular helps explain the 30 Industry and 10...

We present estimates of the term structure of inflation expectations, derived from an affine model of real and nominal yield curves. The model features stochastic covariation of inflation with the real pricing kernel, enabling us to extract a time-varying inflation risk premium. We fit the model...

Fluctuations in the aggregate balance sheets of financial intermediaries provide a window on the joint determination of asset prices and macroeconomic aggregates. We document that financial intermediary balance sheets contain strong predictive power for future excess returns on a broad set of...