The financial crisis of 2008 was followed by sharp contractions in aggregate output and employment and an unusual increase in aggregate total factor productivity (TFP). This paper attempts to explain these facts by modeling the creation and destruction of jobs in the presence of heterogeneity in...

I estimate a return distribution of an equity index from equity index option prices. I evaluate nonparametrically the option price function and a state price density at each 1-year return. Based on a model for dynamics of consumption growth and dividend growth, a real-world probability density...

Common variation in the prices of European corporate debt may not always be associated with a rational response to an increase in the relative importance of a macroeconomic risk factor. Building on Campbell’s ICAPM framework, we show that risk premia of assets with nonlognormal return...

A number of existing studies have concluded that risk sharing allocations supported by competitive, incomplete markets equilibria are quantitatively close to first-best. Equilibrium asset prices in these models have been difficult to distinguish from those associated with a complete markets...

This paper estimates the price for restructuring risk in the U.S. corporate bond market during 1999-2005. Comparing quotes from default swap (CDS) contracts with a restructuring event and without, we find that the average premium for restructuring risk represents 6% to 8% of the swap rate...

How do individuals with time-inconsistent preferences make consumption-savings decisions? We try to answer this question by considering the simplest possible form of consumption-savings problem, assuming that discountingg is quasi-geometric. A solution to the decision problem is then a...