We document that the cross-sectional dispersion of conditional FX correlation is countercyclical and that currencies that perform badly (well) during periods of high dispersion yield high (low) average excess returns. We also find a negative cross-sectional association between average FX...

This paper studies asymmetry in economic activity over the business cycle. It develops a tractable multisector model of the economy in which complementarity across inputs causes aggregate activity to be left skewed with countercyclical volatility. We then examine implications of the model...