This article examines whether volatility risk is a priced risk factor in securities returns. Zero-beta at-the-money straddle returns of the Samp;P 500 index are used to measure volatility risk. It is demonstrated that volatility risk captures time variation in the stochastic discount factor,...

This article examines agents' consumption-investment problem in a multi-period pure exchange economy where agents are constrained with the short-sale of state-dependent risky contingent claims. In equilibrum, agents hold options written on aggregate consumption in their optimal portfolios....