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The leverage effect puzzle: Disentangling sources of bias at high frequency

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  • Aït-Sahalia, Yacine
  • Fan, Jianqing
  • Li, Yingying

Abstract

The leverage effect refers to the generally negative correlation between an asset return and its changes of volatility. A natural estimate consists in using the empirical correlation between the daily returns and the changes of daily volatility estimated from high frequency data. The puzzle lies in the fact that such an intuitively natural estimate yields nearly zero correlation for most assets tested, despite the many economic reasons for expecting the estimated correlation to be negative. To better understand the sources of the puzzle, we analyze the different asymptotic biases that are involved in high frequency estimation of the leverage effect, including biases due to discretization errors, to smoothing errors in estimating spot volatilities, to estimation error, and to market microstructure noise. This decomposition enables us to propose novel bias correction methods for estimating the leverage effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Aït-Sahalia, Yacine & Fan, Jianqing & Li, Yingying, 2013. "The leverage effect puzzle: Disentangling sources of bias at high frequency," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 224-249.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:109:y:2013:i:1:p:224-249
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.02.018
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    High frequency data; Leverage effect; Market microstructure noise; Latent volatility; Correlation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General

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