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Abstract:
We identify a 'slope' factor in exchange rates. High interest rate currencies load more on this slope factor than low interest rate currencies. As a result, this factor can account for most of the cross-sectional variation in average excess returns between high and low interest rate currencies. A standard, no-arbitrage model of interest rates with two factors - a country- specific factor and a global factor - can replicate these findings, provided there is sufficient heterogeneity in exposure to the global risk factor. We show that our slope factor is a global risk factor. By investing in high interest rate currencies and borrowing in low interest rate currencies, US investors load up on global risk, particularly during bad times.

Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Abstract:
We identify a 'slope' factor in exchange rates. High interest rate currencies load more on this slope factor than low interest rate currencies. As a result, this factor can account for most of the cross-sectional variation in average excess returns between high and low interest rate currencies. A standard, no-arbitrage model of interest rates with two factors - a country-specific factor and a global factor - can replicate these findings, provided there is sufficient heterogeneity in exposure to the global risk factor. We show that our slope factor is a global risk factor. By investing in high interest rate currencies and borrowing in low interest rate currencies, US investors load up on global risk, particularly during bad times.

Carry Trade, Currency Risk

Abstract:
The essential element in modern asset pricing theory is a positive random variable called the stochastic discount factor (SDF). This object allows one to price any payoff stream. Its existence is implied by the absence of arbitrage opportunities. Consumption-based asset pricing models link the SDF to the marginal utility growth of investors and in turn to observable economic variables|and in doing so, they provide empirical content to asset pricing theory. This entry discusses this class of models.

Equity premium puzzle, asset pricing, Consumption-based asset pricing models

Abstract:
We propose an arbitrage-free stochastic discount factor (SDF) model that jointly prices the cross-section of returns on portfolios of stocks sorted on book-to-market dimension, the cross-section of government bonds sorted by maturity, the dynamics of bond yields, and time series variation in expected stock and bond returns. Its pricing factors are motivated by a decomposition of the pricing kernel into a permanent and a transitory component. Shocks to the transitory component govern the level of the term structure of interest rates and price the cross-section of bond returns. Shocks to the permanent component govern the dividend yield and price the average equity returns. Third, shocks to the relative contribution of the transitory component to the conditional variance of the SDF govern the Cochrane-Piazzesi (2005, CP) factor, a strong predictor of future bond returns, price the cross-section of book-to-market sorted stock portfolios. Because the CP factor is a strong predictor of economic activity one- to two-years ahead, shocks to the importance of the transitory component signal improving economic conditions. Value stocks are riskier and carry a return premium because they are more exposed to such shocks.

Abstract:
We set up an exponentially affine stochastic discount factor model for bond yields and stock returns in order to estimate the prices of aggregate risk. We use the estimated risk prices to compute the no-arbitrage price of a claim to aggregate consumption. The price-dividend ratio of this claim is the wealth-consumption ratio. Our estimates indicate that total wealth is much safer than stock market wealth. The consumption risk premium is only 2.2 percent, substantially below the equity risk premium of 6.9 percent. As a result, the average US household has more wealth than one might think; most of it is human wealth. Nearly all of the variation in total wealth can be traced back to changes in long-term real interest rates. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that events in bond markets, not stock markets, matter most for understanding fluctuations in total wealth.

Abstract:
Asset pricing is a branch of financial economics that is rich in puzzles and anomalies - that is, stylized empirical facts not easily explained by the canonical asset pricing models. These range from the equity premium puzzle and the risk-free rate puzzle to the fact that stock returns are highly predictable. This entry discusses different consumption based asset pricing models that have been developed to resolve these puzzles and it evaluates their empirical performance.

Equity premium puzzle, asset pricing, Consumption-based asset pricing models

Abstract:
Three of the most fundamental changes in US corporations since the early 1970s have been (1) the increased importance of organizational capital in production, (2) the increase in managerial income inequality and pay-performance sensitivity, and (3) the secular decrease in labor market reallocation. Our paper develops a simple explanation for these changes: a shift in the composition of productivity growth away from vintage-specific to general growth. This shift has stimulated the accumulation of organizational capital in existing firms and reduced the need for reallocating workers to new firms. We characterize the optimal managerial compensation contract when firms accumulate organizational capital but risk-averse managers cannot commit to staying with the firm. A calibrated version of the model reproduces the increase in managerial compensation inequality and the increased sensitivity of pay to performance in the data over the last three decades.

Abstract:
Our paper examines the impact of heterogeneous trading technologies for households on asset prices and the distribution of wealth. We distinguish between passive traders who hold fixed portfolios of stocks and bonds, and active traders who adjust their portfolios to changes in expected returns. To solve the model, we derive an optimal consumption sharing rule that does not depend on the trading technology, and we derive an aggregation result for state prices. This allows us to solve for equilibrium prices and allocations without having to search for market-clearing prices in each asset market separately. We show that the fraction of total wealth held by active traders, not the fraction held by all participants, is critical for asset prices, because only these traders respond to variation in state prices and hence absorb the residual aggregate risk created by non-participants. We calibrate the heterogeneity in trading technologies to match the equity premium and the risk-free rate. The calibrated model eproduces the skewness and kurtosis of the wealth distribution in the data.

Asset Pricing, Risk Sharing, Limited Participation

Abstract:
Aggregate consumption growth risk explains why low interest rate currencies do not appreciate as much as the interest rate differential and why high interest rate currencies do not depreciate as much as the interest rate differential. We sort foreign T-bills into portfolios based on the nominal interest rate differential with the US, and we test the Euler equation of a US investor who invests in these currency portfolios. US investors earn negative excess returns on low interest rate currency portfolios and positive excess returns on high interest rates currency portfolios. We find that low interest rate currencies provide US investors with a hedge against US aggregate consumption growth risk, because these currencies appreciate on average when US consumption growth is low, while high interest rate currencies depreciate when US consumption growth is low.

Asset Pricing, Exchange Rates

Abstract:
We introduce limited liability in a model with a continuum of ex ante identical agents who face aggregate and idiosyncratic income risk. These agents can trade a complete menu of contingent claims, but they cannot commit and shares in a Lucas tree serve as collateral to back up their state-contingent promises. The limited liability option gives rise to a second risk factor, in addition to aggregate consumption growth risk. This liquidity risk is created by binding solvency constraints, and it is measured by the growth rate of one moment of the wealth distribution. The economy is said to experience a negative liquidity shock when this growth rate is high and a large fraction of agents faces severely binding solvency constraints. The adjustment to the Breeden-Lucas stochastic discount factor induces substantial time variation in equity risk premia that is consistent with the data at business cycle frequencies.

Abstract:
We introduce limited liability in a model with a continuum of ex ante identical agents who face aggregate and idiosyncratic income risk. These agents can trade a complete menu of contingent claims, but they cannot commit and shares in a Lucas tree serve as collateral to back up their state-contingent promises. The limited liability option gives rise to a second risk factor, in addition to aggregate consumption growth risk. This liquidity risk is created by binding solvency constraints, and it is measured by the growth rate of one moment of the wealth distribution. The economy is said to experience a negative liquidity shock when this growth rate is high and a large fraction of agents faces severely binding solvency constraints. The adjustment to the Breeden-Lucas stochastic discount factor induces substantial time variation in equity risk premia that is consistent with the data at business cycle frequencies.

Asset Pricing, Wealth Heterogeneity, Limited Commitment

Abstract:
In a model with housing collateral, the ratio of housing wealth to total wealth shifts the conditional distribution of asset prices and consumption growth. A decrease in house prices reduces the collateral value of housing, increases household exposure to idiosyncratic risk, and increases the conditional market price of risk. The model quantitatively accounts for conditional asset pricing moments, cross-sectional variation in value portfolio returns and key unconditional asset pricing moments. The increase of the equity premium and Sharpe ratio when collateral is scarce matches the increase observed in US data. The model also generates a return spread of value firms over growth firms of the magnitude observed in the data. Assets with payoffs that lay farther in the future are less risky. Growth stocks are such long duration assets.

Abstract:
In a model with housing collateral, a decrease in house prices reduces the collateral value of housing, increases household exposure to idiosyncratic risk, and increases the conditional market price of risk. This collateral mechanism can quantitatively replicate the conditionaland the cross-sectional variation in risk premia on stocks for reasonable parameter values. The increase of the conditional equity premium and Sharpe ratio when collateral is scarce in the model matches the increase observed in US data. The model also generates a return spread of value firms over growth firms of the magnitude observed in the data, because the term structure of consumption strip risk premia is downward sloping.

Abstract:
In a model with housing collateral, a decrease in house prices reduces the collateral value of housing, increases household exposure to idiosyncratic risk, and increases the conditional market price of risk. This collateral mechanism can quantitatively replicate the conditional and the cross-sectional variation in risk premia on stocks for reasonable parameter values. The increase of the conditional equity premium and Sharpe ratio when collateral is scarce in the model matches the increase observed in US data. The model also generates a return spread of value firms over growth firms of the magnitude observed in the data, because the term structure of consumption strip risk premia is downward sloping.

Abstract:
In a model with housing collateral, a decrease in house prices reduces the collateral value of housing, increases household exposure to idiosyncratic risk, and increases the conditional market price of risk. This collateral mechanism can quantitatively replicate the conditional and the cross-sectional variation in risk premia on stocks for reasonable parameter values. The increase of the conditional equity premium and Sharpe ratio when collateral is scarce in the model matches the increase observed in US data. The model also generates a return spread of value firms over growth firms of the magnitude observed in the data, because the term structure of consumption strip risk premia is downward sloping.

Housing collateral, risk sharing, risk premia

Abstract:
In models with a large number of agents who have constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) preferences, the absence of insurance markets for idiosyncratic labour income risk has no effect on the premium for aggregate risk if the distribution of idiosyncratic risk is independent of aggregate shocks. In spite of the missing markets, a representative agent who consumes aggregate income prices the excess returns on stocks correctly. This result holds regardless of the persistence of idiosyncratic shocks, as long as they are not permanent, even when households face binding, and potentially very tight borrowing constraints. Consequently, in this class of models there is no link between the extent of self-insurance against idiosyncratic income risk and aggregate risk premia.

Risk premium, idiosyncratic income risk, incomplete markets

Abstract:
In a standard incomplete markets model with a continuum of households that have constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) preferences, the absence of insurance markets for idiosyncratic labor income risk has no effect on the premium for aggregate risk if the distribution of idiosyncratic risk is independent of aggregate shocks and aggregate consumption growth is independent over time. In equilibrium, households only use the stock market to smooth consumption; the bond market is inoperative. Furthermore, the cross-sectional distributions of wealth and consumption are not affected by aggregate shocks. These results hold regardless of the persistence of idiosyncratic shocks, even when households face tight solvency constraints. A weaker irrelevance result survives when we allow for predictability in aggregate consumption growth.

Market Incompleteness, Asset Pricing

Abstract:
In a standard incomplete markets model with a continuum of households that have constant relative risk aversion (CRRA) preferences, the absence of insurance markets for idiosyncratic labor income risk has no effect on the premium for aggregate risk if the distribution of idiosyncratic risk is independent of aggregate shocks and aggregate consumption growth is independent over time. In the equilibrium, which features trade and binding solvency constraints, as opposed to Constantinides and Duffie (1996), households only use the stock market to smooth consumption; the bond market is inoperative. Furthermore we show that the cross-sectional wealth and consumption distributions are not affected by aggregate shocks. These results hold regardless of the persistence of idiosyncratic shocks, and arise even when households face tight solvency constraints, but only a weaker irrelevance result survives when we allow for predictability in aggregate consumption growth.

Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Abstract:
In a model with housing collateral, the ratio of housing wealth to human wealth shifts the conditional distribution of asset prices and consumption growth. A decrease in house prices reduces the collateral value of housing, increases household exposure to idiosyncratic risk, and increases the conditional market price of risk. Using aggregate data for the US, we find that a decrease in the ratio of housing wealth to human wealth predicts higher returns on stocks. Conditional on this ratio, the covariance of returns with aggregate risk factors explains eighty percent of the cross-sectional variation in annual size and book-to-market portfolio returns.

Asset Pricing, Risk Sharing

Abstract:
The covariance of regional consumption varies cross-sectionally and over time. Household-level borrowing frictions can explain this aggregate phenomenon. Whenthe value of housing falls, loan collateral shrinks, borrowing (risk-sharing) declines,and the sensitivity of consumption to income increases. Using panel data from 23 US metropolitan areas, we find that in times and regions where collateral is scarce, consumption growth is about twice as sensitive to income growth. Our model aggregates heterogeneous, borrowing-constrained households into regions characterized by a common housing market. The resulting regional consumption patterns quantitatively match the data.

Regional risk sharing, housing collateral

Abstract:
We construct a new data set of consumption and income data for the largest US metropolitan areas, and we show that the covariance of regional consumption and income growth varies over time and in the cross-section. In times and regions where collateral is scarce, regional consumption growth is about twice as sensitive to income growth. Household-level borrowing frictions can explain this new stylized fact. When the value of housing relative to human wealth falls, loan collateral shrinks, borrowing (risk-sharing) declines, and the sensitivity of consumption to income increases. Our model aggregates heterogeneous, borrowing-constrained households into regions characterized by a common housing market. The resulting regional consumption patterns quantitatively match those in the data.

Risk Sharing, Collateral, Real Estate

Abstract:
We construct a new data set of consumption and income data for the largest US metropolitan areas, and we show that the covariance of regional consumption and income growth varies over time and in the cross-section. In times and regions where collateral is scarce, regional consumption growth is about twice as sensitive to income growth. Household-level borrowing frictions can explain this new stylized fact. When the value of housing relative to human wealth falls, loan collateral shrinks, borrowing (risk-sharing) declines, and the sensitivity of consumption to income increases. Our model aggregates heterogeneous, borrowing-constrained households into regions characterized by a common housing market. The resulting regional consumption patterns quantitatively match those in the data.

Abstract:
We develop a method for measuring the amount of insurance the portfolio of government liabilities provides against fiscal shocks, and apply it to postwar US data. We define fiscal shocks as surprises in defense spending. Our results indicate that the US federal government is partially hedged against wars and other surprise increases in defense expenditures. Seven percent of the total cost of defense spending shocks in the postwar era was absorbed by lower real returns on the federal government's outstanding liabilities. More than half of this is due to reductions in expected future, rather than contemporaneous, holding returns on government debt. This implies that changes in US government's fiscal position help predict future bond returns. Our results also have implications for active management of government debt.

Fiscal shocks, defense spending, hedging, predictability, bond returns, debt management

Abstract:
Our paper examines whether intermittent portfolio re-balancing on the part of some stock market investors can help to explain the counter-cyclical volatility of aggregate risk compensation in financial markets. To answer this question, we set up an incomplete markets model in which CRRA-utility investors are subject to aggregate and idiosyncratic shocks and have heterogeneous trading technologies. In our model, a large mass of passive investors do not re-balance their portfolio shares in response to aggregate shocks, while a smaller mass of active investors adjust their portfolio each period to respond to changes in the investment opportunity set. We find that intermittent re-balancers, compared to continuous re-balancers, amplify the countercyclical volatility of risk premia by a factor of four in a calibrated version of our model.

Asset Pricing, Household Finance, Risk Sharing, Limited Participation

Abstract:
We use a standard single-agent model to conduct a simple consumption growth accounting exercise. Consumption growth is driven by news about current and expected future returns on the market portfolio. We impute the residual of consumption growth innovations that cannot be attributed to either news about financial asset returns or future labor income growth to news about expected future returns on human wealth, and we back out the implied human wealth and market return process. Innovations in current and future human wealth returns are negatively correlated with innovations in current and future financial asset returns, regardless of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution.

G12, G14, G33

Abstract:
We use a standard single-agent model to conduct a simple consumption growth accounting exercise. Consumption growth is driven by news about current and expected future returns on the market portfolio. The market portfolio includes financial and human wealth. We impute the residual of consumption growth innovations that cannot be attributed to either news about financial asset returns or future labor income growth to news about expected future returns on human wealth, and we back out the implied human wealth and market return process. This accounting procedure only depends on the agent's willingness to substitute consumption over time, not her consumption risk preferences. We find that innovations in current and future human wealth returns are negatively correlated with innovations in current and future financial asset returns, regardless of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. The evidence from the cross-section of stock returns suggests that the market return we back out of aggregate consumption innovations is a better measure of market risk than the return on the stock market.

Abstract:
Three of the most fundamental changes in US corporations since the early 1970s have been (1) the increased importance of organizational capital in production, (2) the increase in managerial income inequality and pay-performance sensitivity, and (3) the secular decrease in labor market reallocation. Our paper develops a simple explanation for these changes: a shift in the composition of productivity growth away from vintage-specific to general growth. This shift has stimulated the accumulation of organizational capital in existing firms and reduced the need for reallocating workers to new firms. We characterize the optimal managerial compensation contract when firms accumulate organizational capital but risk-averse managers cannot commit to staying with the firm. A calibrated version of the model reproduces the increase in managerial compensation inequality and the increased sensitivity of pay to performance in the data over the last three decades.

Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Abstract:
To explain the low-frequency variation in US equity and debt returns in the 20th century, we solve an equilibrium model in which households face housing collateral constraints. An increase in the ratio of housing to human wealth loosens these borrowing constraintsthus allowing for more risk sharing. The rate of return that households require for holding equity decreases as a result. Feeding the historical time series of US housing collateral into the model replicates four features of long-run asset returns. (1) It produces a fifteen percent equity premium during the 1930s and a slow decline of the equity premium from eleven percent in the 1960s to four percent in 2003. (2) It generates large unexpected capital gains for equity holders, especially in the 1990s. (3) The risk-free rate and the housing collateral ratio are strongly positively correlated at low frequencies. (4) The model mimics the slow decline in the volatility of stock returns and the riskless interest rate.

Abstract:
In a model with housing collateral, the ratio of housing wealth to human wealth shifts the conditional distribution of asset prices and consumption growth. A decrease in house prices reduces the collateral value of housing, increases household exposure to idiosyncratic risk, and increases the conditional market price of risk. Using aggregate data for the US, we find that a decrease in the ratio of housing wealth to human wealth predicts higher returns on stocks. Conditional on this ratio, the covariance of returns with aggregate risk factors explains eighty percent of the cross-sectional variation in annual size and book-to-market portfolio returns. A data appendix for this paper is available.

Abstract:
We use a standard single-agent model to conduct a simple consumption growthaccounting exercise. Consumption growth is driven by news about current and expected future returns on the market portfolio. The market portfolio includes financial and human wealth. We impute the residual of consumption growth innovations that cannot be attributed to either news about financial asset returns or future labor income growth to news about expected future returns on human wealth, and we back out the implied human wealth and market return process. This accounting procedure only depends on the agent's willingness to substitute consumption over time, not her consumption risk preferences. We find that innovations in current and future human wealth returns are negatively correlated with innovations in current and future financial asset returns, regardless of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. The evidence from the cross-section of stock returns suggests that the market return we back out of aggregate consumption innovations is a better measure of market risk than the return on the stock market.

Abstract:
We find that the US consumption growth beta of an investment strategy that goes long in high interest rate currencies and short in low interest rate currencies is larger than one. These consumption beta estimates are statistically significant, contrary to what is claimed by Burnside (2007). With these consumption betas, the Consumption-CAPM can account for the average return on this investment strategy of 5.3 percent per annum with a market price of consumption growth risk that is about 5 percent per annum, lower than the price of consumption risk implied by the US equity premium over the same sample. When we formally estimate the model on currency portfolios in a two-step procedure, our estimate of the price of consumption risk is significantly different from zero, even after accounting for the sampling uncertainty introduced by the estimation of the consumption betas, while the constant in the regression of average returns on consumption betas is not significant.

Abstract:
We identify a novel, fiscal hedging motive that helps to explain why governments issue more expensive, long-term debt. We analyze optimal fiscal policy in an economy with distortionary labor income taxes, nominal rigidities and nominal debt of various maturities. The government in our model can smooth labor tax rates by changing the real return it pays on its outstanding liabilities. These changes require state contingent inflation or adjustments in the nominal term structure. In the presence of nominal pricing rigidities and a cash in advance constraint, these changes are themselves distortionary. We show that long term nominal debt can help a government hedge fiscal shocks by spreading out and delaying the distortions associated with increases in nominal interest rates over the maturity of the outstanding long-term debt. After a positive spending shock, the government raises the yield curve and steepens it.

Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Abstract:
Time-variation in the degree of risk-sharing induced by changes in the value of housing collateral sheds new light on the consumption correlation puzzle. If debts can only be enforced to the extent that they are collateralized by housing wealth, a decrease in the value of housing collateral endogenously increases exposure to idiosyncratic risk. This increases the cross-sectional consumption growth dispersion across regions and it reduces the amount of regional income risk shared. We investigate risk-sharing patterns for the 30 largest US metropolitan areas and find empirical support for the housing collateral channel. In times when housing collateral is scarce, the dispersion of consumption growth relative to income growth is twice as high as when collateral is abundant. A structural estimation of the model's consumption dynamics implies a time path for consumption growth dispersion that matches the one in the data. The housing collateral effect is the key element that enables this match.

Abstract:
We suggest a new dynamic equilibrium approach that features product differentiation and endogenizes market structure at the same time. The model yields clear-cut predictions regarding the effects of small and large exchange rate shocks on the market structure, pass-through and international trade. First, we account for the asymmetric price adjustment process with respect to exchange rate shocks. Second, we discuss an array of conditions where short- and long-run international monetary neutrality is violated. We present in detail under which conditions imperfect competition is able to generate persistent and volatile real exchange rate deviations. Most predictions survive alternative market configurations.

Abstract:
In a model with housing collateral, the ratio of housing wealth to human wealth shifts the conditional distribution of asset prices and consumption growth. A decrease in house prices reduces the collateral value of housing, increases household exposure to idiosyncratic risk, and increases the conditional market price of risk. Using aggregate data for the US, we find that a decrease in the ratio of housing wealth to human wealth predicts higher returns on stocks. Conditional on this ratio, the covariance of returns with aggregate risk factors explains eighty percent of the cross-sectional variation in annual size and book-to-market portfolio returns.

Asset Pricing, Risk Sharing

Abstract:
To measure the wealth-consumption ratio, we estimate an exponentially affine model of the stochastic discount factor on bond yields and stock returns. We use that discount factor to compute the no-arbitrage price of a claim to aggregate US consumption. Our estimates indicate that total wealth is much safer than stock market wealth. The consumption risk premium is only 2.2 percent, substantially below the equity risk premium of 6.9 percent. As a result, our estimate of the wealth-consumption ratio is much higher than the price-dividend ratio on stocks throughout the post-war period. The high wealth-consumption ratio implies that the average US household has a lot of wealth, most of it human wealth. A variance decomposition of the wealth-consumption ratio shows less return predictability overall, but most of the return predictability is for future interest rates, not excess returns. We conclude that the properties of the total wealth portfolio are more similar to those of a long-maturity bond portfolio than those of a stock portfolio. The differences that we find between the risk-return characteristics of equity and total wealth suggest that equity is a special asset class.

Abstract:
Our paper examines the impact of heterogeneous trading technologies for households on asset prices and the distribution of wealth. We distinguish between passive traders who hold fixed portfolios of stocks and bonds, and active traders who adjust their portfolios to changes in the investment opportunity set. In the presence of non-participants, the fraction of total wealth held by active traders is critical for asset prices, because only these traders respond to variation in state prices and hence help to clear the market, not the fraction of wealth held by all agents that participate in asset markets. We calibrate this heterogeneity to match the equity premium and the risk-free rate. The calibrated model reproduces the skewness and kurtosis of the wealth distribution in the data. To solve the model, we develop a new method that relies on an optimal consumption sharing rule and an aggregation result for state prices. This result allows us to solve for equilibrium prices and allocations without having to search for market-clearing prices in each asset market separately. Our paper examines the impact of heterogeneous trading technologies for households on asset prices and the distribution of wealth. We distinguish between passive traders who hold fixed portfolios of stocks and bonds, and active traders who adjust their portfolios to changes in the investment opportunity set. In the presence of non-participants, the fraction of total wealth held by active traders is critical for asset prices, because only these traders respond to variation in state prices and hence help to clear the market, not the fraction of wealth held by all agents that participate in asset markets. We calibrate this heterogeneity to match the equity premium and the risk-free rate. The calibrated model reproduces the skewness and kurtosis of the wealth distribution in the data. To solve the model, we develop a new method that relies on an optimal consumption sharing rule and an aggregation result for state prices. This result allows us to solve for equilibrium prices and allocations without having to search for market-clearing prices in each asset market separately.

Abstract:
We evaluate the asset pricing implications of a class of models in which risk sharing is imperfect because of limited enforcement of intertemporal contracts. Lustig (2004) has shown that in such a model the asset pricing kernel can be written as a simple function of the aggregate consumption growth rate and the growth rate of consumption of the set of households that do not face binding enforcement constraints. These unconstrained households have lower consumption growth rates than all other households in the economy. We use household data on consumption growth from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey to identify unconstrained households, to estimate the pricing kernel implied by these models and evaluate their performance in pricing aggregate risk. We find that for high values of the relative risk aversion coefficient, the limited enforcement pricing kernel generates a market price of risk that is substantially closer to the data than the one obtained using the standard complete markets asset pricing kernel.

Abstract:
We evaluate the asset pricing implications of a class of models in which risk sharing is imperfect because of the limited enforcement of intertemporal contracts. Lustig (2004) has shown that in such a model the asset pricing kernel can be written as a simple function of the aggregate consumption growth rate and the growth rate of consumption of the set of households that do not face binding enforcement constraints in that state of the world. These unconstrained households have lower consumption growth rates than constrained households, i.e. they are located in the lower tail of the crosssectional consumption growth distribution. We use household consumption data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey to estimate the pricing kernel implied by the model and to evaluate its performance in pricing aggregate risk. We employ the same data to construct aggregate consumption and to derive the standard complete markets pricing kernel. We find that the limited enforcement pricing kernel generates a market price of risk that is substantially larger than the standard complete markets asset pricing kernel.

Limited Commitment, Equity Premium, Stochastic Discount Factor, Household Consumption Data

Abstract:
Our paper examines whether intermittent portfolio re-balancing on the part of some stock market investors can help to explain the counter-cyclical volatility of aggregate risk compensation in financial markets. To answer this question, we set up an incomplete markets model in which CRRA-utility investors are subject to aggregate and idiosyncratic shocks and have heterogeneous trading technologies. In our model, a large mass of passive investors do not re-balance their portfolio shares in response to aggregate shocks, while a smaller mass of active investors adjust their portfolio each period to respond to changes in the investment opportunity set. We find that intermittent re-balancers amplify the effect of aggregate shocks on the time variation in risk premia by a factor of three in a calibrated version of our model.

Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.