Volatility Forecasting and Volatility Risk Premium

Abstract

Volatility is an important variable in the financial market. We propose a model-free implied volatility method to measure the volatility and test the volatility risk premium. The model-free implied volatility does not depend on the option pricing model, and extracts information from all the option contracts. We provide empirical evidence from the S & P 500 index option that model-free implied volatility is more accurate to forecast the future volatility and the volatility risk premium does not exist.