We use learning in an equilibrium model to explain the puzzling predictive power of the volatility risk premium (VRP) for option returns. In the model, a representative agent follows a rational Bayesian learning process in an economy under incomplete information with the objective of pricing...

We document a political risk premium of about 0.30% per month in the equity option market. High-political risk firms exhibit delta-hedged returns that are significantly lower than those of low-political risk firms. The effect holds both in a cross-sectional and in a time-series context. A...

The option implied volatility spread and skew predict stock returns. These variables also reflect the expected cost of borrowing stock to sell short. The stock borrowing fee implied from options prices predicts changes in quoted borrowing fees and stock returns; however, the volatility spread...

Many financial instruments are designed with embedded leverage such as options and leveraged exchange traded funds (ETFs). Embedded leverage alleviates investors' leverage constraints and, therefore, we hypothesize that embedded leverage lowers required returns. Consistent with this hypothesis,...

The use of futures exchange contracts instead of forwards completes the maturity spectrum of the correlation between the spot yield and the premium. We find that the forward premium puzzle (FFP) depends significantly on the maturity horizon of the futures contract and the choice of sampling...

We document a strong positive cross-sectional relation between corporate bond yield spreads and bond return volatilities. As corporate bond prices are generally attributable to both credit risk and illiquidity as discussed in Huang and Huang (2012), we apply a decomposition methodology to...

This paper implements a novel model-free methodology to measure skewness risk premia in individual stocks. The methodology takes the form of a trading strategy, a skewness swap. The return on the strategy shows a significant positive skewness risk premium in individual stocks. The risk premium...

We derive a model-free option-based formula to estimate the contribution of market frictions to expected returns (CFER) within an asset pricing setting. We estimate CFER for the U.S. optionable stocks. We document that CFER is sizable, it predicts stock returns and it subsumes the effect of...