Financial Markets and the Real Economy


Book Description

Financial Markets and the Real Economy reviews the current academic literature on the macroeconomics of finance.




Agents’ Preferences, the Equity Premium, and the Consumption-Saving Trade-Off


Book Description

This paper aims to measure the risk premium on French equities during 1960-92 and to evaluate how well theoretical models based on various representations of agents' preferences can explain it. Aside from the standard, time-additive utility function with constant relative risk aversion, three other utility functions are reviewed: a recursive utility function, a habit formation utility function, and a utility function that accounts for the interdependence of preferences. Both calibration and econometric estimations show that none of the studied marginal changes in the representation of agents' preferences are sufficient to solve both the equity premium puzzle and the risk-free rate puzzle.




Handbook of the Equity Risk Premium


Book Description

Edited by Rajnish Mehra, this volume focuses on the equity risk premium puzzle, a term coined by Mehra and Prescott in 1985 which encompasses a number of empirical regularities in the prices of capital assets that are at odds with the predictions of standard economic theory.







Models of Risk Preferences


Book Description

Models of Risk Preferences collects studies that critically review alternatives to Expected Utility Theory from the perspective of experimental economics.







Asset Prices, Booms and Recessions


Book Description

"Asset Prices, Booms and Recessions" is a book on Financial Economics from a dynamic perspective. It focuses on the dynamic interaction of financial markets and economic activity. The financial markets to be studied here encompasses the money and bond market, credit market, stock market and foreign exchange market. Economic activity is described by the activity of firms, banks, households, governments and countries. The book shows how economic activity affects asset prices and the financial market and how asset prices and financial market volatility feed back to economic activity. The focus in this book is on theories, dynamic models and empirical evidence. Empirical applications relate to episodes of financial instability and financial crises of the U.S., Latin American, Asian as well as Euro-area countries. The current version of the book has moved to a more extensive coverage of the topics in financial economics by updating the literature in the appropriate chapters. Moreover it gives a more extensive treatment of new and more advanced topics in financial economics such as international portfolio theory, multi-agent and evolutionary approaches, capital asset pricing beyond consumption-based models and dynamic portfolio decisions. Overall, the book presents material that researchers and practitioners in financial engineering need to know about economic dynamics and that economists, practitioners and policy makers need to know about the financial market.




The Equity Risk Premium


Book Description

What is the return to investing in the stock market? Can we predict future stock market returns? How have equities performed over the last two centuries? The authors in this volume are among the leading researchers in the study of these questions. This book draws upon their research on the stock market over the past two dozen years. It contains their major research articles on the equity risk premium and new contributions on measuring, forecasting, and timing stock market returns, together with new interpretive essays that explore critical issues and new research on the topic of stock market investing. This book is aimed at all readers interested in understanding the empirical basis for the equity risk premium. Through the analysis and interpretation of two scholars whose research contributions have been key factors in the modern debate over stock market perfomance, this volume engages the reader in many of the key issues of importance to investors. How large is the premium? Is history a reliable guide to predict future equity returns? Does the equity and cash flows of the market? Are global equity markets different from those in the United States? Do emerging markets offer higher or lower equity risk premia? The authors use the historical performance of the world's stock markets to address these issues.




The Yield Curve and Financial Risk Premia


Book Description

The determinants of yield curve dynamics have been thoroughly discussed in finance models. However, little can be said about the macroeconomic factors behind the movements of short- and long-term interest rates as well as the risk compensation demanded by financial investors. By taking on a macro-finance perspective, the book’s approach explicitly acknowledges the close feedback between monetary policy, the macroeconomy and financial conditions. Both theoretical and empirical models are applied in order to get a profound understanding of the interlinkages between economic activity, the conduct of monetary policy and the underlying macroeconomic factors of bond price movements. Moreover, the book identifies a broad risk-taking channel of monetary transmission which allows a reassessment of the role of financial constraints; it enables policy makers to develop new guidelines for monetary policy and for financial supervision of how to cope with evolving financial imbalances.