We determine the magnitude and nature of systematic default risk using 1971{2009) default data from Moody's. We disentangle systematic risk factors due to business cycle effects, common default dynamics (frailty), and industry-specific dynamics (including contagion). To quantify the contribution...

A macro-prudential policy maker can manage risks to financial stability only if currentand future risks can be reliably assessed. We propose a novel framework to assessfinancial system risk. Using a dynamic factor framework based on state-space methods, we model latent macro-financial and credit...

This paper has been accepted for publication in the 'Review of Economics and Statistics'.We propose a dynamic factor model for mixed-measurement and mixed-frequency panel data. In this framework time series observations may come from a range of families of parametric distributions, may be...

We test whether asymmetric preferences for losses versus gains as in Ang, Chen, and Xing (2006) also affect the pricing of cash flow versus discount rate news as in Campbell and Vuolteenaho (2004). We construct a new four-fold beta decomposition, distinguishing cash flow and discount rate betas...

This paper analyzes the impact of blockownership dispersion on firm value. Blockholdings by multiple blockholders is a widespread phenomenon in the U.S. market. It is not clear, however, whether dispersion among blockholder is preferable to having a more concentrated ownership structure. To test...

We propose a parsimonious regime switching model to characterize the dynamics in the volatilities and correlations of US deposit banks' stock returns over 1994-2011. A first innovative feature of the model is that the within-regime dynamics in the volatilities and correlation depend on the shape...

We develop a high-dimensional and partly nonlinear non-Gaussian dynamic factor model for the decomposition of systematic default risk conditions into a set of latent components that correspond with macroeconomic/financial, default-specific (frailty), and industry-specific effects. Discrete...

We propose a parsimonious regime switching model to characterize the dynamics in the volatilities and correlations of US deposit banks' stock returns over 1994-2011. A first innovative feature of the model is that the within-regime dynamics in the volatilities and correlation depend on the shape...