I derive and test multi-horizon implications of a consumption-based equilibrium model featuring fluctuating expected growth and volatility. My setup allows consumption dynamics to be estimated jointly with covariance risk prices in a single-stage generalized method of moment, and then inferences from asset pricing tests reflect uncertainty coming from factor estimation. I show that changes in consumption volatility are the key driver for explaining major asset pricing anomalies across risk horizons, while other factors play no or a secondary role. Value stocks and past long-term losers pay higher average returns mainly because they covary more negatively with these changes than what other stocks do.

In an intertemporal equilibrium asset pricing model featuring disappointment aversion and changing macroeconomic uncertainty, we show that besides the market return and market volatility, three disappointment-related factors are also priced: a downstate factor, a market downside factor, and a volatility downside factor. We find that expected returns on various asset classes reflect premiums for bearing undesirable exposures to these factors. The signs of estimated risk premiums are consistent with the theoretical predictions. Our most general, five-factor model is very successful in jointly pricing stock, option, and currency portfolios, and provides considerable improvement over nested specifications previously discussed in the literature.

[We propose an asset pricing model with generalized disappointment aversion preferences and long-run volatility risk. With Markov switching fundamentals, we derive closed-form solutions for all returns moments and predictability regressions. The model produces first and second moments of price-dividend ratios and asset returns as well as return predictability patterns in line with the data. Compared to Bansal and Yaron (2004), we generate (i) more predictability of excess returns by price-dividend ratios; (ii) less predictability of consumption growth rates by price-dividend ratios. Our results do not depend on a value of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution greater than one.]

Contemporary literature attributes the temporary drop in secondary prices before a Treasury auction to primary dealers’ limited risk-bearing capacity and slow-moving capital. We attribute the temporary price pressure to slow-moving capital, but not primary dealer’s limited risk-bearing capacity. We document a decline of more than 45% in the Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) auction amount allocated to primary dealers over the years and uncover empirical evidence inconsistent with dealers being the main contributor to the auction cycle. In contrast, our results suggest strategic trading behavior whereby some direct and indirect bidders deliberately reduce their demand in the days leading to the auction. More specifically, we find that, on average, inflows into inflation-indexed mutual funds before the auction days do not translate into increased demand for the underlying, as opposed to inflows on other days. Our results imply an issuance cost to the US Treasury of over $300 million for issuing TIPS in 2019 alone.

We provide new empirical evidence that U.S. expected growth and consumption volatility are closely related to the strong comovement in sovereign spreads. We rationalize these findings in an equilibrium model with recursive utility for credit default swap (CDS) spreads. The framework links a reduced-form default process with country-specific sensitivity to expected growth and macroeconomic uncertainty. Exploiting the high-frequency information in the CDS term structure across 38 countries, we estimate the model and find parameters consistent with preference for early resolution of uncertainty. Our results confirm the existence of time-varying risk premia in sovereign spreads as compensation for exposure to common U.S. macroeconomic risk.

We propose an asset pricing model where preferences display generalized disappointment aversion These preferences, which are embedded in the Epstein and Zin (1989) recursive utility framework, overweight disappointing results as compared to expected utility, and display relatively larger risk aversion for small gambles. With a Markov switching model for the endowment process, we derive closed-form solutions for all returns moments and predictability regressions. The model produces first and second moments of price-dividend ratios and asset returns and return predictability patterns in line with the data. Compared to Differently from the Bansal and Yaron model, our results do not depend on a value of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution greater than one.

We propose a new methodology for modeling and estimating time-varying downside risk and upside uncertainty in equity returns and for assessment of risk–return trade-off in financial markets. Using the salient features of the binormal distribution, we explicitly relate downside risk and upside uncertainty to conditional heteroskedasticity and asymmetry through binormal GARCH (BiN-GARCH) model. Based on S&P 500 and international index returns, we find strong empirical support for existence of significant relative downside risk, and robust positive relationship between relative downside risk and conditional mode.

We examine the portfolio choice of an investor with generalized disappointment-aversion preferences who faces log returns described by a normal-exponential model. We derive a three-fund separation strategy: the investor allocates wealth to a risk-free asset, a standard mean-variance efficient fund, and an additional fund reflecting return asymmetries. The optimal portfolio is characterized by the investor’s endogenous effective risk aversion and implicit asymmetry aversion. In empirical applications, we find that disappointment aversion is associated with much larger asymmetry aversion than are standard preferences. Our model explains patterns in popular portfolio advice across both risk appetites and investment horizons. Received November 12, 2015; editorial decision July 20, 2016 by Editor Stefan Nagel.

Structural or no-arbitrage asset-pricing models emphasize risk factors that cannot be observed directly. We show that the term structure of risk implicit in option prices can reveal these risk factors. Empirically, the variance term structure reveals two predictors of the bond premium, the equity premium, and the variance premium, jointly. Similarly, the term structures of skewness and kurtosis measures also reveal risk factors, but these are subsumed in the predictive content of the variance. The predicted premium is countercyclical and robust to the inclusion of known returns predictors.