Variance Risk Premiums and the Forward Premium Puzzle
54 Pages Posted: 7 Feb 2013
There are 3 versions of this paper
Variance Risk Premiums and the Forward Premium Puzzle
Variance Risk Premiums and the Forward Premium Puzzle
Variance Risk Premiums and the Forward Premium Puzzle
Date Written: December 2012
Abstract
This paper presents evidence that the foreign exchange appreciation is predictable by the currency variance risk premium at a medium 6-month horizon and by the stock variance risk premium at a short 1-month horizon. Although currency variance risk premiums are highly correlated with each other over longer horizons, their correlations with stock variance risk premiums are quite low. Interestingly the currency variance risk premium has no predictive power for stock returns. We rationalize these findings in a consumption-based asset pricing model with orthogonal local and global economic uncertainties. In our model the market is incomplete in the sense that the global uncertainty is not priced by local stock markets and is therefore a forex-specific phenomenon — the currency uncertainty’s effects on the expected stock return are off-setting between the cash flow channel and the volatility channel.
Keywords: forward premium puzzle, currency variance risk premium, stock variance, risk premium, unspanned currency uncertainty, forex return predictability
JEL Classification: G12, G15, F31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation