Diagnosing affine models of options pricing: Evidence from VIX
Gang Li and
Chu Zhang
Journal of Financial Economics, 2013, vol. 107, issue 1, 199-219
Abstract:
Affine jump-diffusion models have been the mainstream in options pricing because of their analytical tractability. Popular affine jump-diffusion models, however, are still unsatisfactory in describing the options data and the problem is often attributed to the diffusion term of the unobserved state variables. Using prices of variance-swaps (i.e., squared VIX) implied from options prices, we provide fresh evidence regarding the misspecification of affine jump-diffusion models, as variance-swap prices are affine functions of the state variables in a broader class of models that do not restrict the diffusion term of the state variables. We apply the nonparametric methodology used by Aït-Sahalia (1996b), supplemented with bootstrap tests and other parametric tests, to the S&P 500 index options data from January 1996 to September 2008. We find that, while the affine diffusion term of the state variables may contribute to the misspecification as the literature has suggested, the affine drift of the state variables, jump intensities, and risk premiums are also sources of misspecification.
Keywords: Options pricing; Affine jump-diffusion models; Variance-swap prices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X12001651
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:107:y:2013:i:1:p:199-219
DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2012.08.011
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Financial Economics is currently edited by G. William Schwert
More articles in Journal of Financial Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().