A key input to the capital budgeting process is the cost of capital. Financial managers most often use the CAPM for estimating the cost of capital for which they need to know the market risk premium. Textbooks advocate using the historical value for the U.S. equity premium as the market risk...

We evaluate the classical Cox, Ingersoll and Ross (1985) (CIR) model using data on LIBOR, swap rates and caps and swaptions. With three factors the CIR model is able to fit the term structure of LIBOR and swap rates rather well. The model is able to match the hump shaped unconditional term...

The stochastic discount factor (SDF) method provides a unified general framework for econometric analysis of asset pricing models. It has recently been pointed out that the generality of the SDF method may come at the cost of estimation efficiency. We show that there is no need for this concern....

We find that on average an announcement of rising unemployment is 'good news' for stocks during economic expansions and 'bad news' during economic contractions. Thus stock prices usually increase on news of rising unemployment, since the economy is usually in an expansion phase. We provide an...

In this paper we develop alternative ways to compare asset pricing models when it is understood that their implied stochastic discount factors do not price all portfolios correctly. Unlike comparisons based on x2 statistics associated with null hypothesis that models are correct, our measures of...

We study the ex-dividend day behavior of Japanese stock prices for the period 1983-87. We find that, contrary to previous findings, prices of ex-day stocks drop by nearly the full amount of the dividend. However, ex-day stocks shows an abnormal return. Also, for the many ex-dividend day stocks...

We show how to use security market data to restrict the admissible region for means and standard deviations of intertemporal marginal rates of substitution (IMRS's) of consumers. Our approach is (i) nonparametric and applies to a rich class of models of dynamic economies; (ii) characterizes the...

We study the role of various trader types in providing liquidity in spot and futures markets based on complete order-book and transactions data as well as cross-market trader identifiers from the National Stock Exchange of India for a single large stock. During normal times, short-term traders...

We find that money managers could reduce portfolio risk by incorporating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria into their investment process. ESG-related issues can cause sudden regulatory changes and shifts in consumer tastes, resulting in large asset price swings which leave...

We present a latent variable model of dividends that predicts, out-of-sample, 39.5% to 41.3% of the variation in annual dividend growth rates between 1975 and 2016. Further, when learning about dividend dynamics is incorporated into a long-run risks model, the model predicts, out-of-sample,...