The early work of Tobin (1958) showed that portfolio allocation decisions can be reduced to a two stage process: first decide the relative allocation of assets across the risky assets, and second decide how to divide total wealth between the risky assets and the safe asset. This so called...

This paper deals with the estimation of the risk-return trade-off. We use a MIDAS model for the conditional variance and allow for possible switches in the risk-return relation through a Markov-switching specification. We find strong evidence for regime changes in the risk-return relation. This...

This paper characterizes the risk-return trade-off in the U.S. Treasury market. We propose a discrete-time no-arbitrage term structure model, in which bond prices are solved in closed form and the conditional variances of bond yields are decomposed into a short-run component and a long-run...

The risk-return trade-off implies that a riskier investment should demand a higher expected return relative to the risk-free return. The approach of Ghysels, Santa-Clara, and Valkanov (2005) consisted of estimating the risk-return trade-off with a mixed frequency, or MIDAS, approach. MIDAS...