IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jetheo/v147y2012i2p501-525.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why does bad news increase volatility and decrease leverage?

Author

Listed:
  • Fostel, Ana
  • Geanakoplos, John

Abstract

A recent literature shows how an increase in volatility reduces leverage. However, in order to explain pro-cyclical leverage it assumes that bad news increases volatility, that is, it assumes an inverse relationship between first and second moments of asset returns. This paper suggests a reason why bad news is more often than not associated with higher future volatility. We show that, in a model with endogenous leverage and heterogeneous beliefs, agents have the incentive to invest mostly in technologies that become more volatile in bad times. Agents choose these technologies because they can be leveraged more during normal times. Together with the existing literature this explains pro-cyclical leverage. The result also gives a rationale to the pattern of volatility smiles observed in stock options since 1987. Finally, the paper presents for the first time a dynamic model in which an asset is endogenously traded simultaneously at different margin requirements in equilibrium.

Suggested Citation

  • Fostel, Ana & Geanakoplos, John, 2012. "Why does bad news increase volatility and decrease leverage?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 501-525.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:147:y:2012:i:2:p:501-525
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2011.07.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002205311100113X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jet.2011.07.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393, Elsevier.
    2. Adrian, Tobias & Shin, Hyun Song, 2010. "Liquidity and leverage," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 418-437, July.
    3. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2009. "Market Liquidity and Funding Liquidity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(6), pages 2201-2238, June.
    4. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1992. "Liquidation Values and Debt Capacity: A Market Equilibrium Approach," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1343-1366, September.
    5. Campbell, John Y. & Hentschel, Ludger, 1992. "No news is good news *1: An asymmetric model of changing volatility in stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 281-318, June.
    6. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Moore, John, 1997. "Credit Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 211-248, April.
    7. Nicolae Gârleanu & Lasse Heje Pedersen, 2011. "Margin-based Asset Pricing and Deviations from the Law of One Price," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(6), pages 1980-2022.
    8. Bengt Holmstrom & Jean Tirole, 1997. "Financial Intermediation, Loanable Funds, and The Real Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 663-691.
    9. Ana Fostel & John Geanakoplos, 2008. "Collateral restrictions and liquidity under-supply: a simple model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 35(3), pages 441-467, June.
    10. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    11. Gromb, Denis & Vayanos, Dimitri, 2002. "Equilibrium and welfare in markets with financially constrained arbitrageurs," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 361-407.
    12. Dan Vu Cao, 2010. "Collateral Shortages, Asset Price And Investment Volatility With Heterogeneous Beliefs," 2010 Meeting Papers 1233, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Caballero, Ricardo J. & Krishnamurthy, Arvind, 2001. "International and domestic collateral constraints in a model of emerging market crises," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 513-548, December.
    14. John Geanakoplos, 2010. "The Leverage Cycle," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2009, Volume 24, pages 1-65, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Rubinstein, Mark, 1994. "Implied Binomial Trees," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(3), pages 771-818, July.
    16. Araújo, Aloísio & Kubler, Felix & Schommer, Susan, 2012. "Regulating collateral-requirements when markets are incomplete," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(2), pages 450-476.
    17. Gorton, Gary & Metrick, Andrew, 2012. "Securitized banking and the run on repo," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 425-451.
    18. Viral V. Acharya & S. Viswanathan, 2011. "Leverage, Moral Hazard, and Liquidity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(1), pages 99-138, February.
    19. Mark Rubinstein., 1994. "Implied Binomial Trees," Research Program in Finance Working Papers RPF-232, University of California at Berkeley.
    20. John Geanakoplos, 2009. "The Leverage Cycle," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1715, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    21. John Geanakoplos, 2009. "The Leverage Cycle," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1715R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jan 2010.
    22. John Geanakoplos, 2010. "Solving the Present Crisis and Managing the Leverage Cycle," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1751, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    23. Ana Fostel & John Geanakoplos, 2011. "Endogenous Leverage: VaR and Beyond," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1800, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    24. John Geanakoplos & Ana Fostel, 2008. "Leverage Cycles and the Anxious Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1211-1244, September.
    25. Bates, David S., 2000. "Post-'87 crash fears in the S&P 500 futures option market," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 181-238.
    26. John Geanakoplos, 2010. "Solving the present crisis and managing the leverage cycle," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 16(Aug), pages 101-131.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, F. Albert, 2022. "Double leverage cycle, interest rate, and financial crisis," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    2. Ana Fostel & John Geanakoplos, 2012. "Tranching, CDS, and Asset Prices: How Financial Innovation Can Cause Bubbles and Crashes," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 190-225, January.
    3. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Oehmke, Martin, 2013. "Bubbles, Financial Crises, and Systemic Risk," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1221-1288, Elsevier.
    4. Galo Nuño & Carlos Thomas, 2017. "Bank Leverage Cycles," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 32-72, April.
    5. Corradin, Stefano & Heider, Florian & Hoerova, Marie, 2017. "On collateral: implications for financial stability and monetary policy," Working Paper Series 2107, European Central Bank.
    6. Gregory Phelan, 2017. "Collateralized borrowing and increasing risk," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 63(2), pages 471-502, February.
    7. Feixue Gong & Gregory Phelan, 2020. "Debt collateralization, capital structure, and maximal leverage," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(2), pages 579-605, September.
    8. Schoenmaker, Dirk & Wierts, Peter, 2015. "Regulating the financial cycle: An integrated approach with a leverage ratio," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 70-72.
    9. Wei Xiong, 2013. "Bubbles, Crises, and Heterogeneous Beliefs," NBER Working Papers 18905, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Tobias Adrian & Emanuel Moench & Hyun Song Shin, 2013. "Dynamic Leverage Asset Pricing," Staff Reports 625, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    11. Aikins Abakah, Emmanuel Joel & Gil-Alana, Luis A. & Arthur, Emmanuel Kwesi & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar, 2022. "Measuring volatility persistence in leveraged loan markets in the presence of structural breaks," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 141-152.
    12. John Geanakoplos, 2013. "Leverage, default, and forgiveness: lessons from the American and European crises," Special Conference Papers 27, Bank of Greece.
    13. Istiak, Khandokar & Serletis, Apostolos, 2020. "Risk, uncertainty, and leverage," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 257-273.
    14. Cipriani, Marco & Fostel, Ana & Houser, Daniel, 2021. "Leverage and asset prices: An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 700-717.
    15. Daskalaki, Charoula & Skiadopoulos, George, 2016. "The effects of margin changes on commodity futures markets," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 129-152.
    16. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    17. , 2016. "Funding Illiquidity," Working Papers on Finance 1601, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance, revised Sep 2019.
    18. Tomas Breach & Thomas B. King, 2018. "Securities Financing and Asset Markets: New Evidence," Working Paper Series WP-2018-22, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    19. M. Iqbal Ahmed & Quazi Fidia Farah, 2021. "Adjustment dynamics between broker–dealer leverage and stock market: a threshold cointegration analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 121-144, July.
    20. Ebrahimi Kahou, Mahdi & Lehar, Alfred, 2017. "Macroprudential policy: A review," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 92-105.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Collateral; Endogenous leverage; VaR; Volatility; Volatility smile;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D52 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Incomplete Markets
    • D53 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Financial Markets
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jetheo:v:147:y:2012:i:2:p:501-525. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622869 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.