In this paper we use high frequency interest rate data for a group of Latin American countries to analyze the behavior of volatility through time. We are particularly interested in understanding whether periods of high volatility spillover across countries. Our analysis relies both on univariate...

This paper is an investigation into the determinants of asymmetries in stock returns. We develop a series of cross-sectional regression specifications which attempt to forecast skewness in the daily returns of individual stocks. Negative skewness is most pronounced in stocks that have...

This paper uses a disaggregated approach to study the volatility of common stocks at the market, industry, and firm levels. Over the period 1962-97 there has been a noticeable increase in firm-level volatility relative to market volatility. Accordingly correlations among individual stocks and...

A gravity model is used to assess the separate effects of exchange rate volatility and currency unions on international trade. The panel data set used includes bilateral observations for five years spanning 1970 through 1990 for 186 countries. In this data set, there are over one hundred...

Aggregate shocks that move output and inflation in opposite directions create a tradeoff between output and inflation variability, forcing central bankers to make a choice. Differences in the degree of accommodation of shocks lead to disparate variability outcomes, revealing national central...

This paper analyzes optimal portfolio choice and consumption with stochastic volatility in incomplete markets. Using the Duffie-Epstein (1992) formulation of recursive utility in continuous time, it shows that the optimal portfolio demand for stocks under stochastic volatility varies strongly...

This paper studies three different measures of monthly stock market volatility: the time-series volatility of daily market returns within the month; the cross-sectional volatility or 'dispersion' of daily returns on industry portfolios, relative to the market, within the month; and the...

This paper reviews the literature on idiosyncratic equity volatility since the publication of "Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk" in 2001. We respond to replication studies by Chiah, Gharghori, and Zhong and by Leippold and Svaton, and we...

Volatility tests are an alternative to regression tests for evaluating the joint null hypothesis of market efficiency and risk neutrality. Acomparison of the power of the two kinds of tests depends on what the alternative hypothesis is taken to be. By considering tests based on conditional...

The present paper is intended to accomplish two tasks. First, models predicting overshooting and magnification, respectively, will be checked for their consistency with two key empirical regularities: A. The observed pattern of price level vs. exchange-rate volatility. B. The observed pattern of...