Yaron thanks the Rodney White Center for financial support. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

How important are volatility fluctuations for asset prices and the macroeconomy? We find that an increase in macroeconomic volatility is associated with an increase in discount rates and a decline in consumption. We develop a framework in which cash flow, discount rate, and volatility risks determine risk premia and show that volatility plays a significant role in explaining the joint dynamics of returns to human capital and equity. Volatility risk carries a sizable positive risk premium and helps account for the cross section of expected returns. Our evidence demonstrates that volatility is important for understanding expected returns and macroeconomic fluctuations. ABSTRACTWe show that volatility movements have first-order implications for consumption dynamics and asset prices. Volatility news affects the stochastic discount factor and carries a separate risk premium. In the data, volatility risks are persistent and are strongly correlated with discount-rate news. This evidence has important implications for the return on aggregate wealth and the cross-sectional differences in risk premia. Estimation of our volatility risks based model yields an economically plausible positive correlation between the return to human capital and equity, while this correlation is implausibly negative when volatility risk is ignored. Our model setup implies a dynamics capital asset pricing model (DCAPM) which underscores the importance of volatility risk in addition to cash-flow and discount-rate risks. We show that our DCAPM accounts for the level and dispersion of risk premia across book-to-market and size sorted portfolios, and that equity portfolios carry positive volatility-risk premia.

No abstract

SED meeting for their helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

How important are volatility fluctuations for asset prices and the macroeconomy? We find that an increase in macroeconomic volatility is associated with an increase in discount rates and a decline in consumption. We develop a framework in which cash flow, discount rate, and volatility risks determine risk premia and show that volatility plays a significant role in explaining the joint dynamics of returns to human capital and equity. Volatility risk carries a sizable positive risk premium and helps account for the cross section of expected returns. Our evidence demonstrates that volatility is important for understanding expected returns and macroeconomic fluctuations. ABSTRACTWe show that volatility movements have first-order implications for consumption dynamics and asset prices. Volatility news affects the stochastic discount factor and carries a separate risk premium. In the data, volatility risks are persistent and are strongly correlated with discount-rate news. This evidence has important implications for the return on aggregate wealth and the cross-sectional differences in risk premia. Estimation of our volatility risks based model yields an economically plausible positive correlation between the return to human capital and equity, while this correlation is implausibly negative when volatility risk is ignored. Our model setup implies a dynamics capital asset pricing model (DCAPM) which underscores the importance of volatility risk in addition to cash-flow and discount-rate risks. We show that our DCAPM accounts for the level and dispersion of risk premia across book-to-market and size sorted portfolios, and that equity portfolios carry positive volatility-risk premia.