This paper presents a consumption-based general equilibrium model for valuing foreign exchange contingent claims. The model identifies a novel economic mechanism by exploiting highly but imperfectly shared consumption disaster with variable intensities which are the concerns to the representative investor under recursive utility. When applied to the data, the model simultaneously replicates (i) the moderate option-implied volatilities; (ii) substantial variations in the risk-neutral skewness of currency returns; (iii) the uncovered interest rate parity puzzle; and (iv) the first two moments of carry trade returns. Furthermore, the model rationalizes salient features of the aggregate stock, government bonds, and equity index options.

This paper proposes a general equilibrium model that explains the pricing of the S&P 500 index options. The central ingredients are a peso component in the consumption growth rate and the time-varying risk aversion induced by habit formation which amplifies consumption shocks. The amplifying effect generates the excess volatility and a large jump-risk premium which combine to produce a pronounced volatility smirk for index options. The time-varying volatility and jump-risk premiums explain the observed state-dependent smirk patterns. Besides volatility smirks, the model has a variety of other implications which are broadly consistent with the aggregate stock and option market data.

We exploit information in sovereign CDS spreads and the international trade network to provide causal evidence of the propagation of global economic shocks. We show that trade links are an important source of shock transmission using the natural experiments of the Japanese tsunami and the COVID-19 lockdown in China. We then confirm more general and gradual information flows along the trade network by showing extensive country-level credit/equity cross-sectional return predictability. News about country fundamentals flows primarily from importers to exporters, depends on both direct and indirect links in the trade network, and is magnified by the exporting country's financial vulnerability.

We document a regime change in the Treasury market post-Global Financial Crisis (GFC): dealers switched from net short to net long Treasury bonds. We construct “net-long” and “net-short” curves that account for balance sheet and financing costs, and show that actual yields moved from the net short curve pre-GFC to the net long curve post-GFC. Our theory shows the regime shift caused negative swap spreads and co-movement among swap spreads, dealer positions, and covered-interest-parity violations. Furthermore, the effects of various monetary and regulatory policies are regime-dependent. We highlight Treasury supply as a plausible driver of this regime shift.