The decomposition of consumption beta into a component driven by assets' cash-flow news and one related to assets' discount-rate news reveals that macroeconomic risks embodied in cash flows largely account for the cross-sectional dynamics of average stock returns. Empirically, we find that...

I solve a portfolio optimization problem with stochastic death rates. An agent demands more of an asset that pays off high (low) in states of the world when he expects to live longer (shorter) than an asset with the opposite payoff. Consequently, in equilibrium, an asset with a positive...