This paper analyzes the effects that uncertainty about economic fundamentalshas on aggregate trading volume. First, the trading volume of an investor facinga standard consumption portfolio choice problem is derived. It is found that if theparameters describing the investment opportunity set...

This paper describes a mechanism designed to induce commercial banks to increase their willingness to extend loans in an economic environment characterized by increased uncertainty and diminished expectations. This mechanism is a new tool for the conduct of monetary policy to combat recessions.

There is an extensive literature claiming that it is often difficultto make use of arbitrage opportunities in financial markets. Thispaper provides a new reason why existing arbitrage opportunitiesmight not be seized. We consider a world with short-lived securities,no short-selling constraints...

We argue that there is a connection between the interbank market for liquidity and thebroader financial markets, which has its basis in demand for liquidity by banks. Tightnessin the interbank market for liquidity leads banks to engage in what we term “liquiditypull-back,” which involves...

The pricing kernel puzzle is the observation that the pricing kernelmight be increasing in some range of the market returns. This paperanalyzes the pricing kernel in a nancial market equilibrium. If mar-kets are complete and investors are risk-averse and have common andtrue beliefs, the pricing...

We develop a method that allows one to compute incomplete-market equilibria routinely forMarkovian equilibria (when they exist). The main difficulty to be overcome arises from the setof state variables. There are, of course, exogenous state variables driving the economy but, in anincomplete...