The investment premium -- the finding that firms with low asset growth deliver high average returns -- is an integral part of recent factor models. I document empirically that the investment premium (1) reflects leverage, (2) does not exist among zero-leverage firms, and (3) increases with...

The empirical tests of traditional structural models of credit risk tend to indicate that such models have been unsuccessful in the modeling of credit spreads. To address these negative findings some authors introduce single-factor stochastic volatility specifications and/or jumps.In the yield...

Contingent Convertible bonds (CoCos) are debt instruments that convert into equity or are written down in times of distress. Existing pricing models assume conversion triggers based on market prices and on the assumption that markets can always observe all relevant firm information. But all...

I study a novel data set of short-term dividend futures contracts for individual stocks. I combine this data with dividend forecasts from equity research analysts to construct a model-free measure of short-term equity risk premia. I provide the first description of the cross-section of risk...

The value premium is the empirical observation that low market/book “value” stocks have higher returns than high market/book “growth” stocks. In this paper, we investigate and present evidence for an “equity as a call option hypothesis” for the value premium. Volatility decreases the...

I propose a neoclassical production economy with costly external financing, partial investment irreversibility, and endogenous investment/financing decisions to rationalize and quantify the well-documented interaction between the book-to-market equity effect and the financial leverage effect in...

Investors have to be offered risk premiums to invest in risky assets. These risk premiums take different forms in different asset markets: equity risk premiums (ERP) in stock markets, default spreads in bond markets and real asset premiums in other asset markets. These premiums have their roots...

The Equity risk-premium and volatility puzzles: Is it possible to have a high-equity premium and a low risk-free rate, and a high volatile stock return, have received a great deal of attention but beyond this, the fundamental issues are the following: What are the economic representations that...

Through the interaction between financial constraints and R&D, I study two asset pricing puzzles: mixed evidence on the financial constraints-return relation and the positive R&D-return relation. Unlike capital investment, R&D is more inflexible. A financially constrained R&D-intensive rm is...

Lack of shareholders' commitment about debt and investment policies increases the cost of debt by a quantity that we refer to as the agency (credit) spread. The agency spread increases with the number of periods for which debt holders are exposed to policies that decrease the value of debt: from...