Asset Pricing with Countercyclical Household Consumption Risk

Abstract

We show that shocks to household consumption growth are negatively skewed, persistent, countercyclical, and drive asset prices. We construct a parsimonious model where heterogeneous households have recursive preferences. A single state variable drives the conditional cross-sectional moments of household consumption growth. The estimated model fits well the unconditional cross-sectional moments of household consumption growth and the moments of the risk-free rate, equity premium, price-dividend ratio, and aggregate dividend and consumption growth. The model-implied risk-free rate and price-dividend ratio are procyclical, while the market return has countercyclical mean and variance. Finally, household consumption risk explains the cross section of excess returns.