We present a model for the equilibrium movement of capital between asset markets that are distinguished only by the levels of capital invested in each. Investment in that market with the greatest amount of capital earns the lowest risk premium. Intermediaries optimally trade off the costs of intermediation against fees that depend on the gain they can offer to investors for moving their capital to the market with the higher mean return. The bargaining power of an investor depends on potential access to alternative intermediaries. In equilibrium, the speeds of adjustment of mean returns and of capital between the two markets are increasing in the degree to which capital is imbalanced between the two markets, and can be reduced by competition among intermediaries.

Stochastic equilibria under uncertainty with continuous-time security trading and consumption are demonstrated in a general setting. A common question is whether the current price of a security is an unbiased predictor of the future price of the security plus intermediate dividends. This is the hypothesis of expected financial gains from trade. The relevance of this hypothesis in multi-good economies is called into question by the following demonstrated fact. For each set of probability assessments there exists a corresponding equilibrium, one with the original agents, original equilibrium allocations, and no expected financial gains from trade under the given probability assessments. The spanning number of the economy is defined as the fewest number of security markets required to sustain a complete markets equilibrium (in a dynamic sense made precise in the paper). The spanning number is linked directly to agent primitives, in particular the manner in which new information resolves uncertainty over time. The spanning number is shown to be invariant under bounded changes in expectations. Several examples are given in which the spanning number is finite even though the number of potential states of the world is infinite.

We consider the problem of the design and sale of a security backed by specified assets. Given access to higher-return investments, the issuer has an incentive to raise capital by securitizing part of these assets. At the time the security is issued, the issuer's or underwriter's private information regarding the payoff of the security may cause illiquidity, in the form of a downward-sloping demand curve for the security. The severity of this illiquidity depends upon the sensitivity of the value of the issued security to the issuer's private information. Thus, the security-design problem involves a tradeoff between the retention cost of holding cash flows not included in the security design, and the liquidity cost of including the cash flows and making the security design more sensitive to the issuer's private information. We characterize the optimal security design in several cases. We also demonstrate circumstances under which standard debt is optimal and show that the riskiness of the debt is increasing in the issuer's retention costs for assets.

This paper provides a simulated moments estimator (SME) of the parameters of dynamic models in which the state vector follows a time-homogeneous Markov process. Conditions are provided for both weak and strong consistency as well as asymptotic normality. Various tradeoff's among the regularity conditions underlying the large sample properties of the SME are discussed in the context of an asset pricing model.

A two-period (0 and T) Arrow^Debreu economy is set up with a general model of uncertainty.We suppose that an equilibrium exists for this economy.The Arrow-Debreu economy is placed in a Radner [31] setting; agents may trade claims continuously during [0,T].Under appropriate conditions it is possible to implement the original Arrow-Debreu equilibrium, which may have an infinite dimensional commodity space, in a Radner economy which has only a finite number of securities.This is done by opening the "right" set of securities markets, a set which effectively completes markets for the continuous trading Radner economy.

We introduce a family of generalized-method-of-moments estimators of the parameters of a continuous-time Markov process observed at random time intervals. The results include strong consistency, asymptotic normality, and a characterization of standard errors. Sampling is at an arrival intensity that is allowed to depend on the underlying Markov process and on the parameter vector to be estimated. We focus on financial applications, including tick-based sampling, allowing for jump diffusions, regime-switching diffusions, and reflected diffusions.

We study the implications of imperfect information for term structures of credit spreads on corporate bonds. We suppose that bond investors cannot observe the issuer’s assets directly, and receive instead only periodic and imperfect accounting reports. For a setting in which the assets of the firm are a geometric Brownian motion until informed equityholders optimally liquidate, we derive the conditional distribution of the assets, given accounting data and survivorship. Contrary to the perfect-information case, there exists a default-arrival intensity process. That intensity is calculated in terms of the conditional distribution of assets. Credit yield spreads are characterized in terms of accounting information. Generalizations are provided.

The paper provides conditions on the primitives of a continuous-time economy under which there exist equilibria obeying the Consumption-Based Capital Asset Pricing Model (CCAPM). The paper also extends the equilibrium characterization of interest rates of Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross (1985) to multi-agent economies. We do not use a Markovian state assumption.

A stochastic differential formulation of recursive utility is given sufficient conditions for existence, uniqueness, time consistency, monotonicity, continuity, risk aversion, concavity, and other properties. In the setting of Brownian information, recursive and intertemporal expected utility functions are observationally distinguishable. However, one cannot distinguish between a number of non-expected-utility theories of one-shot choice under uncertainty after they are suitably integrated into an intertemporal framework. In a "smooth" Markov setting, the stochastic differential utility model produces a generalization of the Hamilton-Bellman-Jacobi characterization of optimality. A companion paper explores the implications for asset prices. Copyright 1992 by The Econometric Society.

In the setting of ‘affine’ jump-diffusion state processes, this paper provides an analytical treatment of a class of transforms, including various Laplace and Fourier transforms as special cases, that allow an analytical treatment of a range of valuation and econometric problems. Example applications include fixed-income pricing models, with a role for intensity-based models of default, as well as a wide range of option-pricing applications. An illustrative example examines the implications of stochastic volatility and jumps for option valuation. This example highlights the impact on option ‘smirks’ of the joint distribution of jumps in volatility and jumps in the underlying asset price, through both jump amplitude as well as jump timing.