Open Access
Estimating the elasticity of intertemporal substitution with leverage
(Elsevier, 2017) González Urteaga, Ana; Rubio Irigoyen, Gonzalo; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa
Following the recent literature on intermediary asset pricing models, this paper argues that the marginal utility of wealth of financial intermediaries can be used to generate enough volatility and counter-cyclicality on the recursive preference-based stochastic discount factor. Hence, a dynamic econometric strategy of an asset pricing model with the market portfolio return and the leverage growth of financial intermediaries allows for a sensible economic estimate of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. On the contrary, the same framework with alternative measures of consumption produces extremely poor economic results.
Open Access
The quality premium with leverage and liquidity constraints
(Elsevier, 2021) González Urteaga, Ana; Rubio Irigoyen, Gonzalo; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Gestión de Empresas; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
This research analyzes the causes of the quality premium, one of the most intriguing and successful investment strategies in equity markets. While previous research has argued that psychological biases explain the performance of the quality minus junk factor, our paper analyzes a leverage constraint explanation within a rational risk-based framework. The quality factor is multidimensional in nature, which suggests that a combination of risk, frictions, and behavioral biases is a reasonable explanation. Once we incorporate margin requirements and liquidity restrictions, we find that tighter conditions result in a higher intercept and a lower slope for the empirically implemented capital asset pricing model when using 10 quality-sorted portfolios. Our paper shows that, indeed, not only behavioral biases explain quality, but also market frictions account for its performance.
Open Access
The joint cross-sectional variation of equity returns and volatilities
(Elsevier, 2017) González Urteaga, Ana; Rubio Irigoyen, Gonzalo; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa
This paper analyzes the determinants of the simultaneous cross-sectional variation of return and volatility risk premia. Independently of the model specification employed, the estimated risk premium associated with the default premium beta is always positive and statistically different from zero. Moreover, the risk premium of the market volatility risk premium beta is negative and statistically significant. However, both risk factors are priced economically and statistically differently in the volatility and return segments of the market. On average, common factors in both segments explain 90% of the variability of volatility risk premium portfolios, but only 65% of the variability of equity return portfolios.
Open Access
Volatility risk premia betas
(Universidad de Zaragoza, 2016) González Urteaga, Ana; Rubio Irigoyen, Gonzalo; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa
This paper analyzes the cross-sectional and time-series behavior of thevolatility risk premia betas at the portfolio level. These betas show a monotonic relation with respect to the magnitude of the volatility risk premium payoffs. Moreover, portfolio conditional volatility risk premia betas increase significantly in recessions. In particular, these betas tend to increase significantly with default premium, market betas and the HML and SMB Fama-French risk factors. On the other hand, conditional betas tend to decrease when industrial production growth, consumption growth, the market excess return, and the momentum factor increase.
Open Access
Extracting expected stock risk premia from option prices and the information contained in non-parametric-out-of-sample stochastic discount factors
(Routledge, 2020) González Urteaga, Ana; Nieto, Belén; Rubio Irigoyen, Gonzalo; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Gestión de Empresas; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
This paper analyzes the factor structure and cross-sectional variability of a set of expected excess returns extracted from option prices and a non-parametric and out-of-sample stochastic discount factor. We argue that the existing potential segmentation between the equity and option markets makes it advisable to avoid using only option prices to extract expected equity risk premia. This set of expected risk premia significantly forecasts future realized returns, and the first two principal components explain 94.1% of the variability of expected returns. A multi-factor model with the market, quality, funding illiquidity, the default premium and the market-wide variance risk premium as factors significantly explains the cross-sectional variability of expected excess returns. The (asymptotically) different from zero adjusted cross-sectional R-squared statistic is 83.6%.
Open Access
A forecasting analysis of risk‐neutral equity and Treasury volatilities
(Wiley, 2019) González Urteaga, Ana; Nieto, Belén; Rubio Irigoyen, Gonzalo; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
This paper employs equity (VIX) and Treasury (MOVE) risk‐neutral volatilities to assess their relative forecasting performance with respect to future real activity, stock and Treasury excess returns, and aggregate risk factors. The in‐sample evidence suggests that the square of VIX tends to dominate the square of MOVE. Out‐of‐sample predictive analysis, performed as a horse race between equity and Treasury risk‐neutral volatilities, shows that, contrary to earlier results, the square of VIX and MOVE tend to complement each other.
Open Access
The cross-sectional variation of volatility risk premia
(Elsevier, 2016) González Urteaga, Ana; Rubio Irigoyen, Gonzalo; Gestión de Empresas; Enpresen Kudeaketa
This paper analyzes the determinants of the cross-sectional variation of the average volatility risk premia for a representative set of portfolios sorted by volatility risk premium beta. The market volatility risk premium and, especially, the default premium are shown to be key risk factors in the cross-sectional variation of average volatility risk premium payoffs. The cross-sectional variation of risk premia seems to reflect a very different behavior of the underlying components of our sample portfolios with respect to credit or financial stress that generates a significant dispersion of the volatility swap pricing of these securities.
Open Access
Guarantee requirements by European central counterparties and international volatility spillovers
(JAI Press, 2022) González Urteaga, Ana; Rubio Irigoyen, Gonzalo; Enpresen Kudeaketa; Institute for Advanced Research in Business and Economics - INARBE; Gestión de Empresas
This analysis addressed the potential systemic effects of guarantee requirements by central counterparties. Using data from the Spanish BME and German Eurex central clearing counterparties and controlling for tail risk and monetary and real activity variables, we found a significant, positive, and robust relationship between the guarantees required and the spillover or total connectedness effects among nine financial assets in the Spanish, United States, and German capital markets. Bad economic times also had a significant incremental effect on the relationship between guarantees and connectedness. These findings are robust across central clearing corporations and futures contracts in the IBEX 35, DAX 30, and EURO STOXX 50. In addition, an event study indicated that global spillover effects tend to increase before central counterparty institutions raise their guarantees. The implication of the findings is that European clearing institutions react to rather than cause bad economic times.