The Long-lived Volatility of Korean Stock Market and Its Relation to Macroeconomic Conditions

Abstract

This study aims to understand the long-run movement of volatility in Korean stock market by decomposing stock volatility into the long-lived and the short-lived components. In addition, I analyze how the low-frequency movement of stock market volatility is related to changes in macroeconomic conditions. The volatility decomposition is made based on the GARCH-MIDAS model, in which the long-lived volatility is constructed based on the combination of realized volatilities (RVs). The results show that the long-lived volatility contains information of up to 3~4 years of past RVs. In addition, the changes in the long-lived volatility can explain about two thirds of volatility changes in the Korean stock market from 1994 to 2009. Meanwhile, the low-frequency movement in the market volatility can be related to changes in macroeconomic conditions. The analysis shows that the stock market volatility appears to be countercyclical while showing a positive correlation with the inflation. In addition, the stock market volatility tends to rise as macroeconomic uncertainty increases. These results imply that macroeconomic policies aiming at economic stabilization could contribute to reduction in the stock market volatility.

Keywords

• 주식시장(Stock Market)
• 변동성(Volatility)
• 거시경제여건(Macroeconomic Conditions)
• GARCHMIDAS