This paper shows that the risk-bearing capacity of U.S. securities brokers and dealers is a strong determinant of risk premia in commodity markets. Commodity derivatives are the principal instrument used by producers and consumers of commodities to hedge against commodity price risk....

We estimate the term structure of the price of variance risk (PVR), which helps distinguish between competing asset-pricing theories. First, we measure the PVR as proportional to the Sharpe ratio of short-term holding returns of delta-neutral index straddles; second, we estimate the PVR in a...

Sellers of variance swaps earn time-varying risk premia for their exposure to realized variance, the level of variance swap rates, and the slope of the variance swap curve. To measure risk premia, we estimate a dynamic term structure model that decomposes variance swap rates into expected...

A small but ambitious literature uses affine arbitrage-free models to estimate jointly U.S. Treasury term premiums and the term structure of equity risk premiums. Within this approach, this paper identifies the parameter restrictions that are consistent with a simple dividend discount model,...

We uncover new return predictability in the cross-section of delta-hedged equity options. Expected returns of writing delta-hedged calls are negatively correlated with current stock price, firm profit margin and profitability, but positively correlated with firm cash holding, cash flow variance,...

After the financialization of commodity futures markets in 2004-05 oil volatility has become a strong predictor of returns and volatility of the overall stock market. Furthermore, stocks' exposure to oil volatility risk now drives the cross-section of expected returns. The difference in average...

This paper documents law of one price violations in equity volatility markets. While tightly linked by no-arbitrage restrictions, the prices of VIX futures exhibit significant deviations relative to their option-implied upper bounds. Static arbitrage opportunities occur when the prices of VIX...

This paper provides empirical evidence that volatility markets are integrated through the time-varying term structure of variance risk premia. These risk premia predict the returns from selling volatility for different horizons, maturities, and products, including variance swaps, straddles, and...

We present a new discrete-time GARCH jump framework that allows for rich dynamics in higher moments by combining heteroskedastic processes with fat-tailed innovations in returns and volatility. We provide a tractable risk neutralization framework allowing for option valuation with separate...

We show that nearly 100 percent of the U.S. equity premium is earned over a window around the opening hours of European markets when U.S. cash markets are closed. We explore two potential complementary explanations. First, consistent with predictions from dealer inventory risk models, we find...