Stochastic volatility model with leverage and asymmetrically heavy-tailed error using GH skew Student’s t-distribution

Abstract

Bayesian analysis of a stochastic volatility model with a generalized hyperbolic (GH) skew Student’s t-error distribution is described where we first consider an asymmetric heavy-tailness as well as leverage effects. An efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo estimation method is described exploiting a normal variance-mean mixture representation of the error distribution with an inverse gamma distribution as a mixing distribution. The proposed method is illustrated using simulated data, daily TOPIX and S&P500 stock returns. The model comparison for stock returns is conducted based on the marginal likelihood in the empirical study. The strong evidence of the leverage and asymmetric heavy-tailness is found in the stock returns. Further, the prior sensitivity analysis is conducted to investigate whether obtained results are robust with respect to the choice of the priors.