I conduct an empirical investigation into the pricing of subprime asset-backed collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and their contagion effects on other markets. Using data for the ABX subprime indexes, I find strong evidence of contagion in the financial markets. The results support the hypothesis that financial contagion was propagated primarily through liquidity and risk-premium channels, rather than through a correlated-information channel. Surprisingly, ABX index returns forecast stock returns and Treasury and corporate bond yield changes by as much as three weeks ahead during the subprime crisis. This challenges the popular view that the market prices of these “toxic assets” were unreliable; the results suggest that significant price discovery did in fact occur in the subprime market during the crisis.

Empirical researchers have frequently rejected the expectations hypothesis. The expectations hypothesis, however, has seldom, if ever, been tested at the extreme short end of the term structure where maturities are measured in days or weeks. Using overnight, weekly, and monthly repo rates, I find that term rates are almost unbiased estimates of the average overnight rate. This evidence provides new support for the expectations hypothesis.

We show the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross term structure framework can allow a variety of alternative equilibrium solutions for discount bond prices. This is important since it allows us additional flexibility in developing models that capture the properties of the term structure. As an example, we solve for the value of a discount bond when the short-term rate is absorbed at zero. We compare the yields implied by this model to those implied by the original Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross model. We also show that alternative equilibria can occur in other term structure models.

Many contingent claims incorporate options on yield levels. I derive closed-form expressions for European yield-option prices using a general equilibrium model in which the underlying yield is the relevant state variable. The properties of these options differ markedly from those of conventional options on traded assets. For example, yield-call values can be less than their intrinsic value and can be decreasing functions of the underlying yield. These features have important hedging implications. I examine the empirical implications of the model using price data for the 13-week T-bill options traded on the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

We derive and test an alternative closed-form general equilibrium model of the term structure within the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross theoretical framework in which yields are nonlinear functions of the risk-free rate. We show that equilibrium bond prices and the risk-free rate are not always inversely related and that bond risk need not be strictly increasing in maturity. Using Hansen's generalized method of moments to obtain parameter estimates, this nonlinear model outperforms the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross square root model in describing actual Treasury bill yields for the 1964–1986 period.

We find that Treasury floating rate notes (FRNs) trade at a significant premium relative to the prices of Treasury bills and notes. This premium is directly related to the near-constant nature of FRN prices and is correlated with measures reflecting investor demand for safe assets. Money market funds are often the primary investors in FRNs, and the FRN premium is related to flows into funds with fixed net asset values, but not to flows into funds with variable net asset values. These results provide strong evidence that the FRN premium represents a convenience yield for the mark-to-market stability feature of FRNs.

Corporate cash flows are highly volatile and strongly procyclical. We examine the asset-pricing implications of the sensitivity of corporate cash flows to economic shocks within a continuous-time model in which dividends are a stochastic fraction of aggregate consumption. We provide closed-form solutions for stock values and show that the equity premium can be represented as the sum of three components which we call the consumption-risk, event-risk, and corporate-risk premia. Calibrated to historical data, the model implies a total equity premium many times larger than in the standard model. The model also generates levels of equity volatility consistent with those experienced in the stock market.

Counterparty credit risk has become one of the highest-profile risks facing participants in the financial markets. Despite this, relatively little is known about how counterparty credit risk is actually priced. We examine this issue using an extensive proprietary data set of contemporaneous CDS transaction prices and quotes by 14 different CDS dealers selling credit protection on the same underlying firm. This unique cross-sectional data set allows us to identify directly how dealers' credit risk affects the prices of these controversial credit derivatives. We find that counterparty credit risk is priced in the CDS market. The magnitude of the effect, however, is vanishingly small and is consistent with a market structure in which participants require collateralization of swap liabilities by counterparties.

We use a unique sample of corporate bonds guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the US to test recent theories about why asset prices may diverge from fundamental values. A key feature of our study is access to proprietary data on the haircuts, funding costs, and inventory positions of the primary dealers making markets in the individual bonds. The results provide strong support for the cross-sectional implications of the safe-asset, intermediary-constraints, and search-frictions literatures. Furthermore, the results indicate that network topology may also play an important role in explaining mispricing.

How do differences of opinion affect asset prices? Do investors earn a risk premium when disagreement arises in the market? Despite their fundamental importance, these questions are among the most controversial issues in finance. In this paper, we use a novel data set that allows us to directly measure the level of disagreement among Wall Street mortgage dealers about prepayment speeds. We examine how disagreement evolves over time and study its effects on expected returns, return volatility, and trading volume in the mortgage-backed security market. We find that increased disagreement is associated with higher expected returns, higher return volatility, and larger trading volume. These results imply that there is a positive risk premium for disagreement in asset prices. We also show that volatility in and of itself does not lead to higher trading volume. Instead, only when disagreement arises in the market is higher uncertainty associated with more trading. Finally, we are able to distinguish empirically between two competing hypotheses regarding how information in markets gets incorporated into asset prices. We find that sophisticated investors appear to update their beliefs through a rational expectations mechanism when disagreement arises.