Stochastic Volatility with Leverage: Fast Likelihood Inference

Kim et al. (1998) provided a Bayesian analysis of stochastic volatility models based on a fast and reliable Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. Their method ruled out the leverage effect, which is known to be important in applications. Despite this, their basic method has been extensively used in the financial economics literature and more recently in macroeconometrics. In this paper we show how the basic approach can be extended in a novel way to stochastic volatility models with leverage without altering the essence of the original approach. Several illustrative examples are provided.