Economic theory predicts that the integration of financial markets lowers the volatility of consumption. In this paper, we study long-term trends in the consumption volatility of the G7 countries. Using different measures of financial openness, we find some evidence that greater financial openness has been associated with lower consumption volatility. However, volatility of consumption relative...

This paper provides a set of empirical tests of the cross-sectional variation of stock volatility and investablility, where investability is defined as the degree to which a stock is accessible to foreigners. Unlike previous studies, which focus on market volatility and market return, we study the relationship between individual stock return volatility and its investablility. Our findings have ...

Credit default swaps (CDS) are similar to out-of-the-money put options in that both offer a low cost and effective protection against downside risk. This study investigates whether put optionimplied volatility is an important determinant of CDS spreads. Using a large sample of firms with both CDS and options data, we find that individual firms’ put option-implied volatility dominates historical...

This paper assesses the robustness of the relative performance of spotand optionsbased volatility forecasts to the treatment of microstructure noise. Robustness of the results to the method of constructing option-implied forecasts is also investigated. Using a test for superior predictive ability, model-free implied volatility, which exploits information in the volatility ‘smile’, and at-the-mo...

We investigate empirically the role of trading volume (1) in predicting the relative informativeness of volatility forecasts produced by autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) models versus the volatility forecasts derived from option prices, and (2) in improving volatility forecasts produced by ARCH and option models and combinations of models. Daily and monthly data are explored...

Exchange rates differ considerably with respect to exchange rate volatility, while they are very similar with respect to the macroeconomic fundamentals — the well known exchange rate disconnect puzzle. The microeconomic structure of foreign exchange markets, especially the existence of noise traders, may be responsible for the excessive volatility in flexible exchange rate regimes. The entry of...

The main goal of this paper is to study market volatility risk premia. I develop a multifactor model by proposing a pricing kernel, where the market return, the diffusion volatility and the jump volatility are fundamental factors that change the investment opportunity set. Based on estimates of the diffusion and jump volatility factors using an enriched dataset including S&P500 index returns, i...

Market microstructure theories suggest that the durations between transactions carry information about volatility. This paper puts forward a model featuring stochastic volatility, stochastic conditional duration, and jumps to analyze high frequency returns and durations. Durations affect price jumps in two ways: as exogenous sampling intervals, and through the interaction with volatility. We ad...

We forecast realized volatility extending the heterogeneous autoregressive model (HAR) to include implied (IV), leverage effect, overnight returns, and of volatility. analyze 10 international stock indices finding that, although a simple HAR augmented with IV (HAR-IV) is more accurate than any excluding it, all markets support further extensions HAR-IV model. More forecasts are found using retu...

I find that stocks with high sensitivities to changes in the V IX slope exhibit high returns on average. The price of V IX slope risk is approximately 2.5% annually, statistically significant and cannot be explained by other common factors, such as the market excess return, size, book-to-market, momentum, liquidity, market volatility, and the variance risk premium. I provide a theoretical model...