The information content of risk-neutral skewness for volatility forecasting

Abstract

The paper investigates whether risk-neutral skewness has incremental explanatory power for future volatility in the S&P 500 index. While most of previous studies have investigated the usefulness of historical volatility and implied volatility for volatility forecasting, we study the information content of risk-neutral skewness in volatility forecasting model. In particular, we concentrate on Heterogeneous Autoregressive model of Realized Volatility and Implied Volatility (HAR-RV-IV). We find that risk-neutral skewness contains additional information for future volatility, relative to past realized volatilities and implied volatility. Out-of-sample analyses confirm that risk-neutral skewness improves significantly the accuracy of volatility forecasts for future volatility. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.