The outsourcing of IT services poses a conundrum to the traditional theories of the firm. While there are many prescriptive sourcing metrics that are geared towards the evaluation of tangible and measurable aspects of vendors and clients, much of the information that is traditionally important...

This paper considers a linear panel data model with time varying heterogeneity. Bayesian inference techniques organized around Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) are applied to implement new estimators that combine smoothness priors on unobserved heterogeneity and priors on the factor structure of...

We study the bank lending channel in Switzerland over three decades using unbalanced quarterly bank-individual data spanning 1987 to 2016. In contrast to the usual empirical approach, we take an agnostic stance on which bank characteristic drives the heterogenous lending response to interest...

We utilize Bayesian model averaging to estimate a stochastic discount factor (SDF) for single-stock options. A Bayesian model averaging SDF outperforms reduced-form benchmark models in-sample and out-of-sample in pricing option return anomalies and portfolios. We document that the SDF is dense...

This paper investigates in how far monetary policy shocks impact Euro- pean asset markets, conditional on different risk states. It focuses on four different asset classes: equity of industrial firms, equity of banks, high-grade corporate bonds, and high-yielding corporate bonds. We distinguish...

We use Bayesian techniques to select factors in a general multifactor asset pricing model. From a given set of 15 factors we evaluate all possible pricing models by the extent to which they describe the data as given by the posterior model probabilities. Interest rates, premiums, returns on...

We use Bayesian techniques to select factors in a general multifactor asset pricing model. From a given set of 15 factors we evaluate all possible pricing models by the extent to which they describe the data as given by the posterior model probabilities. Interest rates, premiums, returns on...

Over the last two decades, alternative expected return proxies have been proposed with substantially lower variation than realized returns. This helped to reduce parameter uncertainty and to identify many seemingly robust relations between expected returns and variables of interest, which would...

We complement the conditional CAPM by introducing unobservable long-run changes in risk factor loadings. In this environment, investors rationally `learn' the long-level of factor loadings from the observation of realized returns. As a direct consequence of this assumption, conditional betas are...