Sudden big price changes are followed by periods of high and persistent volatility. I develop a tractable dynamic rational expectations model consistent with this observation. An infinity of agents possess dispersed information about future dividends and trade in centralized markets. Information...

We propose and estimate a model of endogenous informed trading that is a hybrid of the PIN and Kyle models. When an informed trader trades optimally, both returns and order flows are needed to identify information asymmetry parameters. Empirical relationships between parameter estimates and...

We explore the implications of ambiguity for the pricing of credit default swaps (CDSs). A model of heterogeneous investors with independent preferences for ambiguity and risk shows that, since CDS contracts are assets in zero net supply, the net credit risk exposure of the marginal investor...

Announcing a large fiscal stimulus may signal the government’s pessimism about the severity of a recession to the private sector, impairing the stabilizing effects of the policy. Using a theoretical model, we show that these signaling effects occur when the stimulus exceeds expectations and...

We argue for incorporating the financial economics of market microstructure into the financial econometrics of asset return volatility estimation. In particular, we use market microstructure theory to derive the cross-correlation function between latent returns and market microstructure noise,...

We argue for incorporating the financial economics of market microstructure into the financial econometrics of asset return volatility estimation. In particular, we use market microstructure theory to derive the cross-correlation function between latent returns and market microstructure noise,...

We study dynamic signaling in a game of stochastically evolving stakes. Our motivating example is dynamic limit pricing in markets with persistent demand shocks. An incumbent is privately informed about its costs, high or low, and can deter a potential entrant by setting prices strategically....

The ad hoc Black-Scholes (AHBS) model is one of the most widely used option valuation models among practitioners models. The main contribution of this study is methodological. We have two main results: (1) we make the empirical observation that typically the call and put sneers are discontinuous...

We find that weekend, holiday and overnight trading breaks generate excessive perceived risk in the option markets, presumably due to asymmetric information, which, in turn, encourages uninformed option traders to postpone trading. This perceived risk subsides after two days accompanied by an...

The idea that information frictions amplify business cycles is hard to evaluate because information is not easily measured. We propose a quantifiable information friction that amplifies output fluctuations. In our simple model of decentralized trade, income dispersion measures uncertainty about...