Macroeconomic Shocks and Risk Premia

What are the macroeconomic forces behind the cross-sectional and time-series variation in expected excess returns? To answer this question, this paper integrates models of empirical asset pricing with structural vector autoregressions (VAR). First, I use an unconditional asset pricing framework to construct an orthogonal shock in a macroeconomic VAR that best explains the cross-sectional variation in expected returns. The obtained “λ-shock” closely resembles identified monetary policy surprises and does not explain the recent US recessions. Second, I integrate return-forecasting methods to construct a second shock in the VAR, which best explains time-variation in expected returns. The obtained “γ-shock” turns out to be virtually orthogonal to the λ-shock, closely resembles demand-type financial shocks identified by macroeconomists, and explains most US recessions. I find that the λ-shock and the γ-shock jointly explain up to 80% of aggregate consumption fluctuations in the US.