The term structure of equity returns is downward-sloping: stocks with high cash flow duration earn 1.10% per month lower returns than short-duration stocks in the cross-section. I create a measure of cash flow duration at the firm level using balance sheet data to show this novel fact. Factor models can explain only 50% of the return differential, and the difference in returns is three times larger after periods of high investor sentiment. Analysts extrapolate from past earnings growth into the future and predict high returns for high-duration stocks following high-sentiment periods, contrary to ex-post realizations. I use institutional ownership as a proxy for short-sale constraints, and find the negative cross-sectional relationship between cash flow duration and returns is only contained within short-sale constrained stocks.

We study how investors respond to inflation combining a customized survey experiment with trading data at a time of historically high inflation. Investors’ beliefs about the stock return–inflation relation are very heterogeneous in the cross section and on average too optimistic. Moreover, many investors appear unaware of inflation-hedging strategies despite being otherwise well-informed about prevailing inflation rates and asset returns. Consequently, whereas exogenous shifts in inflation expectations do not impact return expectations, information on past returns during periods of high inflation leads to negative updating about the perceived stock-return impact of inflation, which feeds into return expectations and subsequent actual trading behavior.

We show that after monetary policy announcements, the conditional volatility of stock market returns rises more for firms with stickier prices than for firms with more flexible prices. This differential reaction is economically large and strikingly robust to a broad array of checks. These results suggest that menu costs—broadly defined to include physical costs of price adjustment, informational frictions, etc.—are an important factor for nominal price rigidity at the micro level. We also show that our empirical results are qualitatively and, under plausible calibrations, quantitatively consistent with New Keynesian macroeconomic models in which firms have heterogeneous price stickiness.

We develop a capital structure model in which firms differ in their ability to adjust output prices. Firms with inflexible prices are more exposed to nominal and real shocks, leading to lower leverage, shorter debt maturity, higher cost of debt, tighter covenants, and greater precautionary cash holdings. Shocks to cash flow volatility raise the cost of debt more for firms with less pricing flexibility. We empirically confirm these predictions: Firms with inflexible prices experience significantly larger increases in credit spreads following monetary policy shocks and the 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, especially when they face high preshock rollover risk.

We develop an asset pricing model with endogenous corporate policies that explains how inflation jointly affects real asset prices and corporate default risk. Our model includes two empirically founded nominal rigidities: fixed nominal debt coupons (sticky leverage) and sticky cash flows. These two frictions result in lower real equity prices and credit spreads when expected inflation rises. A decrease in expected inflation has opposite effects, with even larger magnitudes. In the cross-section, the model predicts that the negative impact of higher expected inflation on real equity values is stronger for low leverage firms. We find empirical support for the model’s predictions.

Historically, European Jews have specialized in financial services while being the victims of antisemitism. We find that the present-day demand for finance is lower in German counties where historical antisemitism was higher, compared to otherwise similar counties. Households in counties with high historical antisemitism have similar saving rates but invest less in stocks, hold lower saving deposits, and are less likely to get a mortgage to finance homeownership after controlling for wealth and a rich set of current and historical covariates. Present-day antisemitism and supply-side forces do not fully explain the results. Households in counties where historical antisemitism was higher distrust the financial sector more—a potential cultural externality of historical antisemitism that reduces wealth accumulation in the long run.

We study how different forms of communication influence inflation expectations in a randomized controlled trial using nearly 20,000 US individuals. We elicit individuals’ inflation expectations and then provide eight different forms of information regarding inflation. Reading the actual Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) statement has about the same average effect on expectations as simply being told about the Federal Reserve’s inflation target. Reading news articles about the most recent FOMC meetings results in a forecast revision that is smaller by half. This exogenous variation in inflation expectations has subsequent effects on household spending reported in scanner and survey data.

Binding lower bounds on interest rates and large government deficits limit the scope of fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate households’ spending through financial intermediaries and firms. Policy makers have thus been implementing unconventional policies that aim to increase households’ spending directly through managing their expectations. We first show theoretically and empirically that higher inflation expectations increase households’ consumption. We then design a difference-in-differences strategy to assess the effectiveness of unconventional fiscal policy and forward guidance, both of which aim to raise aggregate demand via managing expectations. Whereas unconventional fiscal policy increases households’ expectations and spending, forward guidance announcements do not

We exploit Germany’s temporary three-percentage-point value-added tax (VAT) cut in the second half of 2020 to study the spending response to unconventional fiscal policy. We use survey and scanner data on household consumption expenditures and their perceived pass-through of the tax change into prices, and a HANK model to quantify the effects of this VAT policy. The survey and scanner data show that the temporary VAT reduction led to a relative increase in durable and, to a lesser extent, semi-durable spending for individuals with high perceived pass-through. According to the HANK model, the VAT policy increased total aggregate consumption spending by 4.4% on impact.

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.