Uninsurable Risk and Financial Market Puzzles

Following Kocherlakota and Pistaferri (2009), we consider two forms of incomplete risk sharing in economies with consumer heterogeneity: (a) where agents are unable to insure their consumption against idiosyncratic skill shocks and (b) where idiosyncratic shocks to skills can be partially insured by striking long term insurance contract with truth revelation constraint. When considering the equity premium, currency premium, risk-free rate, and consumption-real exchange rate puzzles in an integrated framework, we find empirical evidence that although the pricing kernel associated with (a) outperforms the complete risk-sharing stochastic discount factor and the pricing kernel associated with (b), it is still unable to jointly resolve these asset-pricing anomalies.Currency Premium, Equity Premium, Exchange Rate.

The Risk Premium for Equity: Explanations and Implications

The equity premium puzzle shows that using standard parameters and setup, the Consumption-based Capital Asset Pricing Model's (CCAPM's) prediction of the premium associated with systematic risk is out by an order of magnitude.The object of this paper is to consider the implications of each of the broad classes of explanations of the equity premium puzzle for resource allocation, welfare and policy.We argue that the most robust implications are those that flow directly from the high price of systematic risk and are therefore independent of the resolution of the puzzle.risk premium;equity capital;resource allocation;welfare;capital asset pricing

Too Small or too Low? New Evidence on the 4-Factor Model

The aim of this paper is to study the pricing factor structure of Italian equity returns. Using twenty five years of data, we focus on the role of other risk factors besides the market beta, namely size, book to market, and momentum. A two step empirical analysis is provided where first we estimate an unrestricted multi-factor model to test if there is any evidence of misspecification. Then, we estimate the restricted model, i.e. with pricing errors equal to zero, through the Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM). We find that the market premium and the size premium for stocks are confirmed for a domestic Italian investor. On the contrary, according to our asset pricing tests, weak evidence is found for the value premium. Finally, we highlight, coherently with recent evidence on other countries but in contrast with previous evidence for the Italian stock market, that augmenting the model with a momentum factor does not improve its performance.the Fama-French factors; size effect; value premium; GMM; momentum anomaly

Variance Swaps and Intertemporal Asset Pricing

This paper proposes an ICAPM in which the risk premium embedded in variance swaps is the factor mimicking portfolio for hedging exposure to changes in future investment conditions. Recent empirical evidence shows that the fears by investors to deviations from Normality in the distribution of returns are able to explain time-varying financial and macroeconomic risks in addition to being a determinant of the variance risk premium. Moreover, variance swaps hedges unfavorable changes in the stochastic investment opportunity set, and is not a redundant asset because significantly expands the efficient mean-variance frontier. Thence, we should expect the variance swap risk incremental pricing information associated with the variance risk premium, particularly at shorter horizons.variance risk premium, intertemporal asset pricing

Asset Pricing Implications of Firms' Financing Constraints

We incorporate costly external finance in an investment-based asset pricing model and investigate whether financing frictions are quantitatively important for pricing a cross-section of expected returns. We show that common assumptions about the nature of the financing frictions are captured by a simple financing cost' function, equal to the product of the financing premium and the amount of external finance. This approach provides a tractable framework for empirical analysis. Using GMM, we estimate a pricing kernel that incorporates the effects of financing constraints on investment behavior. The key ingredients in this pricing kernel depend not only on fundamentals', such as profits and investment, but also on the financing variables, such as default premium and the amount of external financing. Our findings, however, suggest that the role played by financing frictions is fairly negligible, unless the premium on external funds is procyclical, a property not evident in the data and not satisfied by most models of costly external finance.

Term Default, Balloon Risk, and Credit Risk in Commercial Mortgages

Term default and balloon risk play an interactive role in the pricing of credit risk in commercial mortgages. Most commercial mortgage pricing studies assume a borrower\u27s default decision is based solely on the property value; the mortgage valuation model here also incorporates a property income trigger. The model considers both the risk of default during the term of the loan and the risk of loss at maturity (balloon risk). Monte Carlo simulation analyses reveal that pricing models based solely on property value overestimate the probability of term default and the resulting credit risk premium. Adding a property income default trigger without considering balloon risk, however, underestimates the overall credit risk premium. In essence, a double-trigger default model that incorporates balloon risk is critical for accurate assessment of the credit risk in commercial mortgages

Intertemporal Pricing and Price Discrimination: A Semiparametric Hedonic Analysis of the Personal Computer Market

We apply a smooth coefficient semiparametric model to a unique high frequency data set to examine the intertemporal pricing of personal computers.  Furthermore, we test (a) whether firms charge differential component prices for their top performance personal computers and (b) whether premium firms charge both a premium for all their computers and a premium for their top performance ones.  We find nonlinear effects in the pricing of personal components.  We also find that firms in general do not charge differential prices for the components of their top performance computers.  In addition, high quality firms charge higher premia only for their most advanced products

The Equity Premium and Risk-Free Rate Puzzles in a Turbulent Economy: Evidence from 105 Years of Data from South Africa

This paper presents a detailed empirical examination of the South African equity premium; and a quantitative theoretic exercise to test the canonical inter-temporal consumption-based asset-pricing model under power utility. Over the long run, the South African stock market produced average returns six to eight percentage points above bonds and cash; and at the 20-year horizon, an investor would not have experienced a single negative realised equity premium over the entire 105-year period we examine. Yet, the maximum equity premium rationalised by the consumption-based model is 0.4%. The canonical macro-financial model closely matches the average risk-free rate, using realistic parameters for the coefficient of risk aversion and a positive rate of time preference.consumption-based asset pricing; stochastic discount factor; equity risk premium puzzle; risk-free rate; risk aversion coefficient; South Africa

GRID PRICING FOR FED CATTLE: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

Weekly grid premium and discount price date for fed cattle have been collected over a 3-year period. The grid price data are combined with carcass data (2590 South Dakota slaughter steers) to investigate the variability in the average weekly carcass premium is affected by changes in packer-determined grid premiums and discounts on a weekly basis. The three-stage recursive model is then estimated using an autoregressive procedure. The results of the empirical analysis indicated that among all grid premiums and discounts, it is the choice-select discount that plays the dominant role in determining weekly changes in the average weekly carcass premium (discount).slaughter cattle, grid pricing, average pricing, value-based-marketing, Marketing,

EQUITY Premium Puzzle in a Data-Rich Environment

Standard consumption-based asset pricing models focus on the consumption risk, seen as the only source of fluctuations and information about risk for the informed investor. These models, however, can account for high expected excess stock return only when assuming implausible relative risk aversion. This paper adds additional risk factors to the standard C-CAPM model to resolve both the equity premium and the risk-free rate puzzles as well as the risk-free rate volatility puzzle. By adding other relevant risk factors, the resulting pricing model is able to explain these puzzles relying on admissible range of local relative risk aversion. The model generates, also, a time-varying relative risk aversion and intertemporal elasticity of substitution.Common factors, factor analysis, principal components, asset pricing, equity premium puzzle, risk free rate puzzle.