TY - JOUR AU - Bates,David S. TI - U.S. Stock Market Crash Risk, 1926-2006 JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 14913 PY - 2009 Y2 - April 2009 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14913 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14913.pdf N1 - Author contact info: David S. Bates Henry B. Tippie College of Business Department of Finance University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242-1000 Tel: 319/353-2288 Fax: 319/335-3690 E-Mail: david-bates@uiowa.edu AB - This paper applies the Bates (RFS, 2006) methodology to the problem of estimating and filtering time- changed Lévy processes, using daily data on U.S. stock market excess returns over 1926-2006. In contrast to density-based filtration approaches, the methodology recursively updates the associated conditional characteristic functions of the latent variables. The paper examines how well time-changed Lévy specifications capture stochastic volatility, the "leverage" effect, and the substantial outliers occasionally observed in stock market returns. The paper also finds that the autocorrelation of stock market excess returns varies substantially over time, necessitating an additional latent variable when analyzing historical data on stock market returns. The paper explores option pricing implications, and compares the results with observed prices of options on S&P 500 futures. ER -