This paper shows that supply shock uncertainty interacts with the monetary policy rule to drive bond risks in a New Keynesian asset pricing model. In my model, positive nominal bond-stock betas emerge as the result of volatile supply shocks but only if the monetary policy rule features a high inflation weight. Habit formation preferences generate endogenously time-varying risk premia, explaining the volatility and predictability of bond and stock excess returns in the data, and implying that bond-stock betas price the expected equilibrium mix of shocks rather than realized shocks. The model explains the change from positive nominal and real bond-stock betas in the 1980s to negative nominal and real bond-stock betas in the 2000s with a shift from dominant supply shocks and an inflation-focused monetary policy rule, to demand shocks in the 2000s. Post-pandemic nominal and real bond-stock betas are explained with dominant supply shocks and a late increase in the monetary policy inflation coefficient.

We provide evidence that financial market risk perceptions are important drivers of economic fluctuations. We introduce a novel measure of risk perceptions: the price of volatile stocks (PVSt), defined as the book-to-market ratio of low-volatility stocks minus the book-to-market ratio of high-volatility stocks. PVSt is high when perceived risk directly measured from surveys and option prices is low. Using our measure, we show that high perceived risk is associated with low risk-free interest rates, a high cost of capital for risky firms, and future declines in output and real investment. Perceived risk as measured by PVSt falls after positive macroeconomic news. These declines are predictably followed by upward revisions in perceived risk, indicating that fluctuations in investor risk perceptions are not fully rational.

ABSTRACT We argue that corporate bond yields reflect fears of debt deflation. When debt is nominal, unexpectedly low inflation increases real liabilities and default risk. In a real business cycle model with optimal but infrequent capital structure choice, more uncertain or procyclical inflation leads to quantitatively important increases in corporate log yields in excess of default‐free log yields. A panel of credit spread indexes from six developed countries shows that credit spreads rise by 14 basis points if inflation volatility or the inflation‐stock correlation increases by one standard deviation.

We show that endogenous variation in risk aversion over the business cycle can jointly explain financial market responses to high-frequency monetary policy shocks with standard asset pricing moments. We newly integrate a work-horse New Keynesian model with countercyclical risk aversion via habit formation preferences. In the model, a surprise increase in the policy rate lowers consumption relative to habit, raising risk aversion. Endogenously time-varying risk aversion in the model is crucial to explain the large fall in the stock market, the cross-section of industry returns, and the increase in long-term bond yields in response to a surprise policy rate increase.

Our new model of consumption-based habit formation preferences generates loglinear, homoskedastic macroeconomic dynamics and time-varying risk premia on bonds and stocks. Consumers' first-order condition for the real risk-free interest rate takes the form of an exactly loglinear consumption Euler equation, commonly assumed in New Keynesian models. Estimating the model separately for 1979-2001 and 2001-2011 explains why the exposure of US Treasury bonds to the stock market changed from positive to negative. A change in the comovement between inflation and the output gap explains changing bond risks, but only when risk premia change endogenously as predicted by the model.

We estimate perceptions about the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy rule from panel data on professional forecasts of interest rates and macroeconomic conditions. The perceived dependence of the federal funds rate on economic conditions varies substantially over time, in particular over the monetary policy cycle. Forecasters update their perceptions about the Fed’s policy rule in response to monetary policy actions, measured by high-frequency interest rate surprises, suggesting that they have imperfect information about the rule. Monetary policy perceptions matter for monetary transmission, as they affect the sensitivity of interest rates to macroeconomic news, term premia in long-term bonds, and the response of the stock market to monetary policy surprises. A simple learning model with forecaster heterogeneity and incomplete information about the policy rule motivates and explains our empirical findings.

ABSTRACT We document that governments whose local currency debt provides them with greater hedging benefits actually borrow more in foreign currency. We introduce two features into a government's debt portfolio choice problem to explain this finding: risk‐averse lenders and lack of monetary policy commitment. A government without commitment chooses excessively countercyclical inflation ex post, which leads risk‐averse lenders to require a risk premium ex ante. This makes local currency debt too expensive from the government's perspective and thereby discourages the government from borrowing in its own currency.

The frequency with which firms adjust output prices helps explain persistent differences in capital structure across firms. Unconditionally, the most flexible-price firms have a 19% higher long-term leverage ratio than the most sticky-price firms, controlling for known determinants of capital structure. Sticky-price firms increased leverage more than flexible-price firms following the staggered implementation of bank deregulation across states and over time, which we use in a difference-in-differences strategy. Firms’ frequency of price adjustment did not change around the deregulation.