We propose a unified framework for estimating integrated variances and covariances based on simple OLS regressions allowing for a general market microstructure noise specification. We show that our estimators can outperform in terms of the root mean squared error criterion the most recent and...

We propose a new approach to measuring the effect of unobservable private information or beliefs on volatility. Using high-frequency intraday data, we estimate the volatility effect of a well identified shock on the volatility of the stock returns of large European banks as a function of the...

This paper presents a generalized pre-averaging approach for estimating the integrated volatility. This approach also provides consistent estimators of other powers of volatility in particular, it gives feasible ways to consistently estimate the asymptotic variance of the estimator of the...

In this paper we propose a flexible model to capture nonlinearities and long-range dependence in time series dynamics. The new model is a multiple regime smooth transition extension of the Heterogenous Autoregressive (HAR) model, which is specifically designed to model the behavior of the...

The notion of model-free implied volatility (MFIV), constituting the basis for the highly publicized VIX volatility index, can be hard to measure with accuracy due to the lack of precise prices for options with strikes in the tails of the return distribution. This is reflected in practice as the...

For financial assets whose best quotes almost always change by jumping by the market`s price tick size (one cent, five cents, etc.), this paper proposes an estimator of Quadratic Variation which controls for microstructure effects. It measures the prevalence of alternations, where quotes jump...