Munich Financial Systems Consulting
Local and Spillover Shocks in Implied Market Volatility: Evidence for the U.S. and Germany
N. Wagner, A. Szimayer (2004): Research in International Business and Finance 18: 237-251

The occurrence and the transmission of large shocks in international equity markets is of essential interest to the study of market integration and financial crises. To this aim, implied market volatility allows to monitor ex-ante risk expectations in different markets. We investigate the behavior of implied market volatility indices for the U.S. and Germany under a straightforward mean reversion model that allows for Poisson jumps. Our
empirical findings for daily data in the 1992 to 2002 period provide evidence of significant positive jumps, i.e. situations of market stress with positive unexpected changes in ex-ante risk assessments. Jump events are mostly country-specific with some evidence of volatility spillover. Analysis of public information around jump dates indicates two basic
categories of events. First, crisis events occurring under spillover shocks. Second, information release events which include three subcategories, namely---worries about as well as actual---unexpected releases concerning U.S. monetary policy, macroeconomic data and corporate profits or single profit warnings. Additionally, foreign exchange market movements may cause volatility shocks.

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