 Why Does Implied Risk Aversion Smile?Alexandre Ziegler The Review of Financial Studies, 2007, vol. 20, issue 3, 859-904 Abstract: Implied risk aversion estimates reported in the literature are strongly U-shaped. This article explores different potential explanations for these “smile” patterns: (i) preference aggregation, both with and without stochastic volatility and jumps in returns, (ii) misestimation of investors’ beliefs caused by stochastic volatility, jumps, or a Peso problem, and (iii) heterogeneous beliefs. The results reveal that preference aggregation and misestimation of investors’ beliefs caused by stochastic volatility and jumps are unlikely to be the explanation for the smile. Although a Peso problem can account for the smile, the required probability of a market crash is unrealistically large. Heterogeneous beliefs cause sizable distortions in implied risk aversion, but the degree of heterogeneity required to explain the smile is implausibly large. JEL-codes: G12 G13 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:20:y:2007:i:3:p:859-904. Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article The Review of Financial Studies is currently edited by Itay Goldstein More articles in The Review of Financial Studies from Society for Financial Studies Oxford University Press, Journals Department, 2001 Evans Road, Cary, NC 27513 USA.. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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