We derive exact expressions for the risk premia for general distributions in a Lucas economy and show that the errors when using log-linear approximations can be economically significant when the shocks are nonnormal. Assuming growth rates are Normal Inverse Gaussian (NIG) and fitting the...

We analyze banks' pooling of corporate loans and propose Pareto-improving sharing rules that depend only on the relative sizes of the loans. Implementation of these sharing rules do not require any precise knowledge of default probabilities or default correlations

Based on a screening model, we hypothesize that borrower risk will be over- (under-)priced in recessions (booms), and the loan spreads' sensitivity to default risk as a function of economic growth will be inverse U-shaped. We test this prediction using a sample of 5,300 U.S. commercial loans...

We show that a simple equilibrium model with uncertain growth is able to simultaneously generate patterns in implied volatility and risk aversion that are similar to the ones observed in the data. In addition, the model produces an implied pricing kernel that is increasing for particular levels...

We show in a theoretical model that the expected excess return on any asset depends on its covariance not only with the market portfolio, but also with changes in the representative agent's estimate. We test our model using GMM and compare it to the CAPM. The results suggest that adding an...

This paper investigates the extent to which differences in information costs can explain the equity home bias puzzle. In a model where information costs are higher for the Foreign asset than for the Home asset, we show that - if cost functions are convex and the assets have identical return...

Three types of agents acting on different information sets are considered: fully informed agents, insiders, and outsiders. Differences in information quality are shown to affect the properties of their optimal portfolios. For an outsider, the share of wealth invested in the stock is decreasing...

In contrast to the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH), the noisy-market hypothesis (NMH) asserts that prices are but noisy indications of fundamental values. We study losses in certainty equivalents of investing according to one hypothesis (NMH or EMH) when the other is true. Our findings suggest...

Using a large cross-section of international household-level data, we explore the relation between institutional quality, households' level of trust and stock-market participation. We find that institutional quality has a significant impact on both trust and stock-market participation. We also...