Credit risk has become an important factor driving government bond returns. We therefore introduce an asset pricing model which exploits information contained in both forward interest rates and forward CDS spreads. Our empirical analysis covers euro-zone countries with German government bonds as...

Credit risk has become an important factor driving government bond returns. We therefore introduce an asset pricing model which exploits information contained in both forward interest rates and forward CDS spreads. Our empirical analysis covers euro-zone countries with German government bonds as...

This paper shows theoretically and empirically that beta- and volatility-based low risk anomalies are driven by return skewness. The empirical patterns con- cisely match the predictions of our model which generates skewness of stock returns via default risk. With increasing downside risk, the...

This paper investigates whether security markets price the effect of social distancing on firms' operations. We document that firms that are more resilient to social distancing significantly outperformed those with lower resilience during the COVID-19 outbreak, even after controlling for the...

Important dimensions of dividend behavior are not well understood. How do dividends behave in extreme states of the world? Why is the risk premium on dividend claims so high? Would dividend bans in crisis states have plausible effects on firms' cost of capital? In this paper we use evidence from...

This paper shows that firms with longer debt maturities earn risk premia not explained by unconditional standard factor models. We develop a dynamic capital structure model and find that firms with long-term debt exhibit more countercyclical leverage, making them more highly levered in...