We develop an incomplete markets framework to synthesize domestic and foreign stochastic discount factors (SDFs) that are consistent with limited international risk sharing. The fundamental departure in our paper is that exchange rate growth need not equal the ratio of SDFs, and we develop a...

This paper documents the fact that in options markets, the (percentage) implied volatility bid-ask spread increases at an increasing rate as the option's maturity date approaches. To explain this stylized fact, this paper provides a market microstructure model for the bid-ask spread in options...

We examine the optimal customization of a financial derivative in the presence of a background risk. This problem includes the model of finding the optimal constant amount of a given pecuniary risk as a degenerated case. We show the importance of this perspective with a preference-free solution...

An economy faces an unknown individual risk, such as the health effects of a recently discovered environmental hazard. Opinions may be widely different about the distribution of risks across the population. We study financial markets that suffice to reach efficient allocations in this situation....

An economy faces an unknown individual risk, such as the health effects of a recently discovered environmental hazard. Opinions may be widely different about the distribution of risks across the population. We study financial markets that suffice to reach efficient allocations in this situation....

We develop a tractable model to study jointly the role of non-diversifiable risk and financial frictions for business cycles. Non-diversifiable risk induces strong precautionary motives, which reduce the exposure of entrepreneurs to aggregate disturbances ex-ante, and make it easier to increase...

This paper studies economies with complete markets where there is positive default on consumer debt. In a simple tractable two-period model, households can default partially, at a finite punishment cost, and competitive intermediaries price loans of different sizes separately. This environment...

In an overlapping generations economy with (incomplete) financial markets but no intermediaries, there is underinvestment in safe assets. In an economy with intermediaries and no financial markets, accumulating reserves of safe assets allows returns to be smoothed, nondiversifiable risk to be...

We study consumption-portfolio and asset pricing frameworks with recursive preferences and unspanned risk. We show that in both cases, portfolio choice and asset pricing, the value function of the investor/representative agent can be characterized by a specific semilinear partial differential...