Risk, Uncertainty and Asset Prices

Geert Bekaert, Yuhang Xing and Eric Engstrom

No 5947, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We identify the relative importance of changes in the conditional variance of fundamentals (which we call "uncertainty") and changes in risk aversion ("risk" for short) in the determination of the term structure, equity prices and risk premiums. Theoretically, we introduce persistent time-varying uncertainty about the fundamentals in an external habit model. The model matches the dynamics of dividend and consumption growth, including their volatility dynamics and many salient asset market phenomena. While the variation in dividend yields and the equity risk premium is primarily driven by risk, uncertainty plays a large role in the term structure and is the driver of counter-cyclical volatility of asset returns.

Keywords: Equity premium; Uncertainty; Stochastic risk aversion; Time variation in risk and return; Excess volatility; External habit; Term structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E44 G12 G15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Risk, uncertainty, and asset prices (2009)
Working Paper: Risk, Uncertainty and Asset Prices (2006)
Working Paper: Risk, uncertainty, and asset prices (2005)
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