We evaluate the short horizon predictive ability of financial conditions indexes for stock returns and macroeconomic variables. We find reliable predictability only when the sample includes the 2008 financial crisis, and we argue that this result is driven by tailoring the indexes to the crisis...

We propose a method to extract individual firms' risk-neutral return distributions by combining options and credit default swaps (CDS). Options provide information about the central part of the distribution, and CDS anchor the left tail. Jointly, options and CDS span the intermediate part of the...

We develop a method to measure the securities purchasing and selling activity of banks using publicly available data from regulatory filings. Using this data, we document stylized empirical facts and explain securities portfolio management through the lens of contemporaneous balance sheet...

Focusing on both micro and aggregate U.S. data, we show the existence of a significant link between aggregate uncertainty and reallocation of resources away from R&D-intensive capital. This link is important because a decrease in the aggregate share of R&D-oriented capital forecasts lower...

In a model with heterogeneous banks and endogenous fire sales, the tightening of bank capital regulation can aggravate fire sales, leading to larger bank losses and higher systemic risk. When calibrated to the data, the least costly policies to mitigate systemic risk raise both ex ante capital...