The finance industry has grown. Financial markets have become more liquid. Information technology has improved. But have prices become more informative? Using stock and bond prices to forecast earnings, we find that the information content of market prices has not increased since 1960. The...

We build a macroeconomic model that centers on liquidity transformation in the financial sector. Intermediaries maximize liquidity creation by issuing securities that are money-like in normal times but become illiquid in a crash when collateral is scarce. We call this process shadow banking. A...

We document that the leverage-adjusted returns on S&P 500 index call and put portfolios are decreasing in their strike-to-price ratio over 1986-2009, contrary to the prediction of the Black-Scholes-Merton model. We test a large number of plausible factor models in order to learn what drives the...

We build a macroeconomic model of financial intermediation in which intermediaries issue equity without friction. In normal times, they maximize liquidity creation by levering up the collateral value of their assets, a process we call shadow banking. A rise in uncertainty causes investors to...

My dissertation consists of two essays. The essays analyze the equilibrium impact on asset risk premia of variation in the level of uncertainty and the risk of sizeable non-Gaussian (jump) shocks to important macroeconomic variables. The essays highlight the importance of uncertainty channels...

I solve in closed form for the optimal dynamic risk choice of a fund manager who is compensated with a high-water mark contract. The optimal risk choice depends on the ratio of the fund's assets under management to its high-water mark. If the manager's outside option value is low, investors'...