This paper explores the implications of a novel class of preferences for the behavior of asset prices. Following a suggestion by Marshall (1920), we entertain the possibility that people derive utility not only from consumption, but also from the very act of saving. These “saving-based”...

Expected utility functions are limited to second-order (conditional) risk aversion, while non-expected utility functions can exhibit either first-order or second-order (conditional) risk aversion. We extend the concept of orders of conditional risk aversion to orders of conditional dependent...

This is a descriptive paper on the excess return from 20 internationally tradable emerging market (EM) currencies. It has two contributions. First, we document stylized facts about EM currencies. For the period starting in the second half of the 1990s and including the two major crises (the 1997...

The general conclusion of a very large literature on the equity premium puzzle is that the simplest version of the consumption-based asset pricing model (C-CAPM) with time-additive, power utility is inconsistent with the data. I show that this conclusion is premature and the simplest version can...

Decision-makers typically rely on informative starting points that are somewhat incorrect and then attempt to make appropriate adjustments. Such reliance on informative starting points may be an optimal response of a Bayesian decision-maker who faces finite computational resources (Lieder et al...

We analyze the history of the equity risk premium from surveys of U.S. Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) conducted every quarter from June 2000 to March 2015. The risk premium is the expected 10-year S&P 500 return relative to a 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield. We show that the equity risk...

This paper extends existing asset pricing models by differentiating between the storable and non-storable components of aggregate consumption and by introducing a commodity storage technology to the economy. I use this extended model to elaborate the interactions between long-run consumption...

We analyze the history of the equity risk premium from surveys of U.S. Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) conducted every quarter from June 2000 to June 2016. The risk premium is the expected 10-year S&P 500 return relative to a 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield. The average risk premium in 2016,...

The term “equity premium puzzle” was coined in 1985 by economists Rajnish Mehra and Edward C. Prescott. The equity premium puzzle in considered one of the most significant questions in finance. A number of papers have explored the fundamental questions of why the premium exists and has not...

We analyze the history of the equity risk premium from surveys of U.S. Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) conducted every quarter from June 2000 to June 2010. The risk premium is the expected 10-year S&P 500 return relative to a 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield. While the risk premium sharply...