Search Results
Working Paper
Volatility puzzles: a unified framework for gauging return-volatility regressions
This paper provides a simple unified framework for assessing the empirical linkages between returns and realized and implied volatilities. First, we show that whereas the volatility feedback effect as measured by the sign of the correlation between contemporaneous return and realized volatility depends importantly on the underlying structural model parameters, the correlation between return and implied volatility is unambiguously positive for all reasonable parameter configurations. Second, the lagged return-volatility asymmetry, or the leverage effect, is always stronger for implied than ...
Working Paper
Jump-diffusion term structure and Ito conditional moment generator
This paper implements a Multivariate Weighted Nonlinear Least Square estimator for a class of jump-diffusion interest rate processes (hereafter MWNLS-JD), which also admit closed-form solutions to bond prices under a no-arbitrage argument. The instantaneous interest rate is modeled as a mixture of a square-root diffusion process and a Poisson jump process. One can derive analytically the first four conditional moments, which form the basis of the MWNLS-JD estimator. A diagnostic conditional moment test can also be constructed from the fitted moment conditions. The market prices of diffusion ...
Working Paper
Specification analysis of structural credit risk models
In this paper we conduct a specification analysis of structural credit risk models, using term structure of credit default swap (CDS) spreads and equity volatility from high-frequency return data. Our study provides consistent econometric estimation of the pricing model parameters and specification tests based on the joint behavior of time-series asset dynamics and cross-sectional pricing errors. Our empirical tests reject strongly the standard Merton (1974) model, the Black and Cox (1976) barrier model, and the Longstaff and Schwartz (1995) model with stochastic interest rates. The double ...
Working Paper
Credit default swap spreads and variance risk premia
We find that firm-level variance risk premium, estimated as the difference between option-implied and expected variances, has a prominent explanatory power for credit spreads in the presence of market- and firm-level risk control variables identified in the existing literature. Such a predictability complements that of the leading state variable--leverage ratio--and strengthens significantly with lower firm credit rating, longer credit contract maturity, and model-free implied variance. We provide further evidence that: (1) variance risk premium has a cleaner systematic component and ...
Working Paper
Dynamic estimation of volatility risk premia and investor risk aversion from option-implied and realized volatilities
This paper proposes a method for constructing a volatility risk premium, or investor risk aversion, index. The method is intuitive and simple to implement, relying on the sample moments of the recently popularized model-free realized and option-implied volatility measures. A small-scale Monte Carlo experiment suggests that the procedure works well in practice. Implementing the procedure with actual S&P 500 option-implied volatilities and high-frequency five-minute-based realized volatilities results in significant temporal dependencies in the estimated stochastic volatility risk premium, ...
Working Paper
Term Structure of Interest Rates with Short-run and Long-run Risks
Bond returns are time-varying and predictable. What economic forces drive this variation? To answer this long-standing question, we propose a consumption-based model with recursive preferences, long-run risks, and inflation non-neutrality. Our model offers two important insights. First, our model matches well the post-1990 nominal upward-sloping U.S. Treasury yield curve. Second, consistent with our model's implication, variance risk premium based on the U.S. interest rate derivatives data emerges as a strong predictor for short-horizon Treasury excess returns, above and beyond the predictive ...
Working Paper
Term structure of interest rates with regime shifts
We develop a term structure model where the short interest rate and the market price of risks are subject to discrete regime shifts. Empirical evidence from Efficient Method of Moments estimation provides considerable support for the regime shifts model. Standard models, which include affine specifications with up to three factors, are sharply rejected in the data. Our diagnostics show that only the regime shifts model can account for the well documented violations of the expectations hypothesis, the observed conditional volatility, and the conditional correlation across yields. We find that ...
Working Paper
Variance risk premia, asset predictability puzzles, and macroeconomic uncertainty
This paper presents predictability evidence from the difference between implied and expected variances or variance risk premium that: (1) the variance difference measure predicts a significant positive risk premium across equity, bond, and credit markets; (2) the predictability is short-run, in that it peaks around one to four months and dies out as the horizon increases; and (3) such a short-run predictability is complementary to that of the standard predictor variables--P/E ratio, forward spread, and short rate. These findings are potentially justifiable by a general equilibrium model with ...
Working Paper
Stock-Bond Return Correlation, Bond Risk Premium Fundamentals, and Fiscal-Monetary Policy Regime
We incorporate regime switching between monetary and fiscal policies in a general equilibrium model to explain three stylized facts: (1) the positive stock-bond return correlation from 1971 to 2000 and the negative one after 2000, (2) the negative correlation between consumption and inflation from 1971 to 2000 and the positive one after 2000, and (3) the coexistence of positive bond risk premiums and the negative stock-bond return correlation. We show that two distinctive shocks—the technology and investment shocks—drive positive and negative stock-bond return correlations under two ...
Working Paper
Stock return predictability and variance risk premia: statistical inference and international evidence
Recent empirical evidence suggests that the variance risk premium, or the difference between risk-neutral and statistical expectations of the future return variation, predicts aggregate stock market returns, with the predictability especially strong at the 2-4 month horizons. We provide extensive Monte Carlo simulation evidence that statistical finite sample biases in the overlapping return regressions underlying these findings can not ``explain" this apparent predictability. Further corroborating the existing empirical evidence, we show that the patterns in the predictability across ...