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Excess Volatility: Beyond Discount Rates

Author

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  • Stefano Giglio
  • Bryan Kelly

Abstract

We document a form of excess volatility that is difficult to reconcile with standard models of prices, even after accounting for variation in discount rates. We compare prices of claims on the same cash flow stream but with different maturities. Standard models impose precise internal consistency conditions on the joint behavior of long- and short-maturity claims and these are strongly rejected in the data. In particular, long-maturity prices are significantly more variable than justified by the behavior at short maturities. We reject internal consistency conditions in all term structures that we study, including equity options, currency options, credit default swaps, commodity futures, variance swaps, and inflation swaps.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefano Giglio & Bryan Kelly, 2018. "Excess Volatility: Beyond Discount Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 71-127.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:133:y:2018:i:1:p:71-127.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/qje/qjx034
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    Cited by:

    1. Moench, Emanuel & Soofi-Siavash, Soroosh, 2022. "What moves treasury yields?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1016-1043.
    2. Carboni, Giacomo & Ellison, Martin, 2022. "Preferred Habitat and Monetary Policy Through the Looking-Glass," CEPR Discussion Papers 17394, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Pedro Manuel Nogueira Reis & Carlos Pinho, 2021. "A Reappraisal of the Causal Relationship between Sentiment Proxies and Stock Returns," Journal of Behavioral Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 420-442, October.
    4. Peter Haan & Chen Sun & Uwe Sunde & Georg Weizsäcker, 2022. "Non-Additivity of Subjective Expectations over Different Time Intervals," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2027, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Leland E. Farmer & Lawrence Schmidt & Allan Timmermann, 2023. "Pockets of Predictability," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(3), pages 1279-1341, June.
    6. Irina Zviadadze, 2017. "Term Structure of Risk on Macrofinance Models," 2017 Meeting Papers 965, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Constantin Charles & Cary Frydman & Mete Kilic, 2024. "Insensitive Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(4), pages 2473-2503, August.
    8. Peter Carr & Liuren Wu, 2023. "Decomposing Long Bond Returns: A Decentralized Theory," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 27(3), pages 997-1026.
    9. Alfaro, Rodrigo & Piña, Marco, 2023. "Estimates of the US Shadow-Rate," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 4(1).
    10. Golez, Benjamin & Koudijs, Peter, 2025. "Equity duration and predictability," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    11. Liu, Yan & Wu, Jing Cynthia, 2021. "Reconstructing the yield curve," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(3), pages 1395-1425.
    12. Backus, David & Boyarchenko, Nina & Chernov, Mikhail, 2018. "Term structures of asset prices and returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(1), pages 1-23.
    13. Peter Carr & Liuren Wu, 2020. "Option Profit and Loss Attribution and Pricing: A New Framework," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(4), pages 2271-2316, August.
    14. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2022. "Overreaction and Diagnostic Expectations in Macroeconomics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 223-244, Summer.
    15. Bordalo, Pedro & Gennaioli, Nicola & Kwon, Spencer Yongwook & Shleifer, Andrei, 2021. "Diagnostic bubbles," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 1060-1077.
    16. Constantin Charles & Cary D. Frydman & Mete Kilic, 2022. "Insensitive Investors," CESifo Working Paper Series 10067, CESifo.
    17. Charles, Constantin & Frydman, Cary & Kilic, Mete, 2024. "Insensitive investors," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120788, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Hui, Kai Wai & Oh, Jun & She, Guoman & Yeung, P. Eric, 2025. "Contract contingencies and uncertainty: Evidence from product market contracts," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2).
    19. Lux, Thomas, 2020. "Can heterogeneous agent models explain the alleged mispricing of the S&P 500?," Economics Working Papers 2020-03, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    20. Richard K Crump & Nikolay Gospodinov, 2025. "Deconstructing the Yield Curve," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 38(2), pages 381-421.
    21. Danial Saef & Yuanrong Wang & Tomaso Aste, 2022. "Regime-based Implied Stochastic Volatility Model for Crypto Option Pricing," Papers 2208.12614, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2022.
    22. Hervé Roche & Juan Sotes-Paladino, 2022. "Sentiment, Mispricing and Excess Volatility in Presence of Institutional Investors," Working Papers 205, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    23. Han, Jinhui & Li, Xiaolong & Ma, Guiyuan & Kennedy, Adrian Patrick, 2023. "Strategic trading with information acquisition and long-memory stochastic liquidity," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 308(1), pages 480-495.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G02 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Behavioral Finance: Underlying Principles
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

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