Closed-Form Partial Transform of Triple Joint Density for Pricing Exotic Options and Variance Derivatives Under the 3/2 Model

Most of the empirical studies on stochastic volatility dynamics favor the 3/2 specification over the square-root (CIR) process in the Heston model. In the context of option pricing, the 3/2 stochastic volatility model is reported to be able to capture the volatility skew evolution better than the Heston model. In this article, we make a thorough investigation on the analytic tractability of the 3/2 stochastic volatility model by proposing a closed-form formula for the partial transform of the triple joint transition density (X,I,V) which stand for the log asset price, the quadratic variation (continuous realized variance) and the instantaneous variance, respectively. Two different approaches are presented for deriving the key result. In the first approach, we obtain the partial transform by utilizing the exponential affine structure of the pair (X,I) and solving the governing PDE that involves V only. The second approach is more probabilistic and it makes use of the change of measure and conditioning techniques. The closed-form partial transform enables us to deduce a variety of marginal transition density functions or characteristic functions that are crucial in pricing discretely sampled variance derivatives and exotic options that depend on both the asset price and quadratic variation. Various applications and numerical examples on pricing exotic derivatives with forward start or discrete monitoring features are given to demonstrate our unified pricing framework based on the closed-form partial transform under the 3/2 model