Climbing and falling off the ladder: Asset pricing implications of labor market event risk

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Schmidt, Lawrence D. W.
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-405X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2025.104131
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: Asset pricing; incomplete markets; State-dependent earnings risk; Return predictability; Equity risk premium

摘要

Administrative earnings data reveal that households are exposed to large, countercyclical idiosyncratic tail risks in labor earnings. I illustrate how these risks affect asset prices within an asset pricing framework with recursive preferences, heterogeneous agents and incomplete markets. Quantitatively, a model in which agents face a time-varying probability of experiencing a rare, idiosyncratic disaster, with parameters disciplined by data, matches the level and dynamics of the equity premium. Stock returns are highly informative about labor market event risk, and, consistent with model predictions, initial claims for unemployment, a proxy for labor market uncertainty, is a highly robust predictor of returns.