We use the information in credit-default swaps to obtain direct measures of the size of the default and nondefault components in corporate spreads. We find that the majority of the corporate spread is due to default risk. This result holds for all rating categories and is robust to the...

I conduct an empirical investigation into the pricing of subprime asset-backed collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and their contagion effects on other markets. Using data for the ABX subprime indexes, I find strong evidence of contagion in the financial markets. The results support the...

If stocks go up, investors may want to rebalance their portfolios. But investors cannot all rebalance. Expected returns may need to change so that the average investor is still happy to hold the market portfolio despite its changed composition. In this way, simple market clearing can give rise...

We use the information in credit default swaps to obtain direct measures of the size of the default and nondefault components in corporate spreads. We find that the majority of the corporate spread is due to default risk. This result holds for all rating categories and is robust to the...

We study an important recent series of buyback auctions conducted by the U.S. Treasury in retiring $67.5 billion of its illiquid off-the-run debt. The Treasury was successful in buying back large amounts of illiquid debt while suffering only a small market-impact cost. The Treasury included the...

We use the information in collateralized debt obligations (CDO) prices to study market expectations about how corporate defaults cluster. A three-factor portfolio credit model explains virtually all of the time-series and cross-sectional variation in an extensive data set of CDX index tranche...

We conduct an empirical analysis of forward prices in the PJM electricity market using a high-frequency data set of hourly spot and day-ahead forward prices. We find that there are significant risk premia in electricity forward prices. These premia vary systematically throughout the day and are...

How does the market value complex structured-credit securities? This issue is central to understanding the current financial crisis and identifying effective policy measures. We study this issue from a novel perspective by contrasting the valuation of CDO equity with that of bank stocks. This is...

We study the marginal tax rate incorporated into short-term tax-exempt municipal rates using a unique new data set from the municipal swap market. By applying an affine term-structure framework, we are able to identify both the marginal tax rate and the credit/liquidity spread in one-week...

This article examines whether there is a flight-to-liquidity premium in Treasury bond prices by comparing them with prices of bonds issued by Refcorp, a U.S. government agency, which are guaranteed by the Treasury. It finds a large liquidity premium in Treasury bonds, which can be more than 15%...