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Is Unlevered Firm Volatility Asymmetric?

Author

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  • Daouk, Hazem
  • Ng, David T.C.

Abstract

Asymmetric volatility refers to the stylized fact that stock volatility is negatively correlated to stock returns. Traditionally, this phenomenon has been explained by the financial leverage effect. This explanation has recently been challenged in favor of a risk premium based explanation. We develop a new, unlevering approach to document how well financial leverage, rather than size, beta, book-to-market, or operating leverage, explains volatility asymmetry on a firm-by-firm basis. Our results reveal that, at the firm level, financial leverage explains much of the volatility asymmetry. This result is robust to different unlevering methodologies, samples, and measurement intervals. However, we find that financial leverage does not explain index-level volatility asymmetry, which is consistent with theoretical results in Aydemir, Gallmeyer and Hollifield (2006).

Suggested Citation

  • Daouk, Hazem & Ng, David T.C., 2009. "Is Unlevered Firm Volatility Asymmetric?," Working Papers 51182, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:cudawp:51182
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.51182
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    Cited by:

    1. Smith, Geoffrey Peter, 2016. "Weekday variation in the leverage effect: A puzzle," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 193-196.
    2. Muhammad Surajo Sanusi, 2017. "Investigating the sources of Black’s leverage effect in oil and gas stocks," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1318812-131, January.
    3. Marcus Alexander Ong, 2015. "An information theoretic analysis of stock returns, volatility and trading volumes," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(36), pages 3891-3906, August.
    4. Dzieliński, Michał & Rieger, Marc Oliver & Talpsepp, Tõnn, 2018. "Asymmetric attention and volatility asymmetry," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 59-67.
    5. Heejoon Han & Eunhee Lee, 2020. "Triple Regime Stochastic Volatility Model with Threshold and Leverage Effects," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 36, pages 481-509.
    6. Kim, Jaeho, 2015. "Bayesian Inference in a Non-linear/Non-Gaussian Switching State Space Model: Regime-dependent Leverage Effect in the U.S. Stock Market," MPRA Paper 67153, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    Keywords

    Financial Economics; Research Methods/ Statistical Methods;

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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