Classical asset pricing theory assumes \perfect markets" which means that nancial markets are frictionless. However, in the real world nancial frictions exists. Recently the nancial literature has focused more on these frictions and on how they a ect asset prices. This thesis contributes to the...

The first essay presents new empirical findings which are inconsistent with prominent theories on the investment premium. The investment premium is the positive stock return difierential between firms with low and high asset growth. Asset growth is the annual percentage change in total assets...