Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports Option-Implied Term Structures Erik Vogt Staff Report No. 706 December 2014 Revised January 2016 This paper presents preliminary findings and is being distributed to economists and other interested readers solely to stimulate discussion and elicit comments. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and are not necessarily reflective of views at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the author. Option-Implied Term Structures Erik Vogt Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports, no. 706 December 2014; revised January 2016 JEL classification: G12, G17, C58 Abstract This paper proposes a nonparametric sieve regression framework for pricing the term structure of option spanning portfolios. The framework delivers closed-form, nonparametric option pricing and hedging formulas through basis function expansions that grow with the sample size. Novel confidence intervals quantify term structure estimation uncertainty. The framework is applied to estimating the term structure of variance risk premia and finds that a short-run component dominates market excess return predictability. This finding is inconsistent with existing asset pricing models that seek to explain the variance risk premium’s predictive content. Key words: variance risk premium, term structures, options, return predictability, nonparametric regression. _________________ Vogt: Federal Reserve Bank of New York (e-mail:
[email protected]). The author is especially thankful to his dissertation chair, George Tauchen, and his dissertation committee members, Tim Bollerslev, Federico Bugni, Jia Li, and Andrew Patton, for their guidance and encouragement.