Asian Review of Financial Research Vol.20 No.3 pp.97-126
Volatility Spread on KOSPI 200 Index Options and Risk Aversion
Key Words : Volatility Spread,Skewness,Kurtosis,Risk Aversion,KOSPI 200,KOSPI 200 option,Generalized Method of Moment(GMM),Likelihood Ratio Test(LR test),KOSPI 200
Abstract
Based on the theorem 1 of Bakshi and Madan(2006) that the difference between the historical volatility and the risk-neutral volatility is determined by the risk aversion and the higher moments of return distribution, this paper investigates the risk aversion implied on KOSPI 200 index options. In addition, we explore relative importance between skewness and kurtosis by using the change of the parameter value estimated when imposing upon restrictions on higher moments. We find out that the risk aversion implied on KOSPI 200 option is smaller than that implied on S&P index options, and the kurtosis of return distribution is relatively more important than the skewness. The importance of kurtosis is consistent to the result of S&P options market. To test a reliability of the methodology used in Bakshi and Madan (2006), finally, we compare our results to the results using the methodology of Bliss and Panigirtzoglou (2004). The method of Bakshi and Madan (2006) gives the risk aversion similar to those of extant methodologies, albeit a small quantity of computational load.