Risk Adjustment and the Temporal Resolution of Uncertainty: Evidence from Options Markets

Risk-neutral probabilities, observable from option prices, combine objective probabilities and risk adjustments across economic states.  We consider a recursive-utility framework to separately identify objective probabilities and risk adjustments using only observed market prices.  We find that a preference for early resolution of uncertainty plays a key role in generating sizeable risk premia to explain the cross-section of risk-neutral and objective probabilities in the data.  Failure to incorporate a preference for the timing of the resolution of uncertainty (e.g., expected utility models) can significantly overstate the implied probability of, and understate risk compensations for, adverse economic states.