In this paper we entertain the hypothesis that observed variations in income shares are the result of changes in the balance of power between workers and capital owners in labor relations. We show that this view implies that income share variations represent a risk factor of first-order importance for the owners of capital and, consequently, are a crucial determinant of the return to equity. Wh...

Everyone who has studied international equity returns has noticed the episodes of high volatility and unusually high correlations coinciding with a bear market. We develop quantitative models of asset returns that match these patterns in the data and use them in two quantitative asset allocation analyses. First, we show that the presence of regimes with different correlations and expected retur...

We analyse daily lead-lag patterns in US equity and credit default swap (CDS) returns. We first document that equity returns robustly lead CDS returns. However, we find that the CDSlag is due to common (and not firm-specific) news and arises predominantly in response to positive (instead of negative) equity market news. We provide an explanation for this newsspecific price discovery based on de...

When utility is nonseparable in nondurable and durable consumption and the elasticity of substitution between the two consumption goods is sufficiently high, marginal utility rises when durable consumption falls. The model explains both the crosssectional variation in expected stock returns and the time variation in the equity premium. Small stocks and value stocks deliver relatively low return...

In our contribution, we model bank profitability via return-on-assets (ROA) and return-on-equity (ROE) in a stochastic setting. We recall that the ROA is an indication of the operational efficiency of the bank while the ROE is a measure of equity holder returns and the potential growth on their investment. As regards the ROE, banks hold capital in order to prevent bank failure and meet bank cap...

We develop a representative agent general equilibrium model with return extrapolation and recursive preferences. Our model is the first return extrapolation model that can be taken to the data in a serious way; it allows for detailed model calibration and direct comparisons with the leading rational expectations models of the stock market. The model matches investors’ extrapolative expectations...

We present a flexible analytical framework that incorporates the equilibrium impact of a (possibly state dependent) sentiment for pessimism in continuous time intertemporal asset pricing. State dependent pessimism comes from a state dependent confidence in the reference belief on equity returns dynamics and implies conservative optimal policies precisely in states where such confidence is low. ...

The proper identification of the risk variables that explain the cross section of returns in emerging markets has many and far-reaching implications for both companies and investors. We examine this risk -return relationship by focusing on three families of models, over 25 years of data, and over 1,600 companies in 30 countries. We perform a statistical analysis that seeks to identify the var i...