Asymmetry in stochastic volatility models with threshold and time-dependent correlation

Abstract In this work we study the effects by including threshold, constant and time-dependent correlation in stochastic volatility (SV) models to capture the asymmetry relationship between stock returns and volatility. We develop SV models which include only time-dependent correlated innovations and both threshold and time-dependent correlation, respectively. It has been shown in literature that the SV model with only constant correlation does a better job of capturing asymmetry than threshold stochastic volatility (TSV) model. We show here that the SV model with time-dependent correlation performs better than the model with constant correlation on capturing asymmetry, and the comprehensive model with both threshold and time-dependently correlated innovations dominates models with pure threshold, constant and time-dependent correlation, and both threshold and constant correlation as well. In our comprehensive model, volatility and returns are time-dependently correlated, where the time-varying correlation is negative, and the volatility is more persistent, less volatile and higher following negative returns as expected. An empirical study is provided to illustrate our findings.