OPTION PRICING WITH VG–LIKE MODELS

We relax separately two assumptions regarding the Variance Gamma (VG) process and price options accordingly. In the case of the Difference of Gammas model we achieve a better fit to market data than achieved by other comparable models. In the case of the long range dependent VG model, we find that the current "skew-correcting" approach to pricing options has shortcomings, and identify a number of model characteristics (flexible skewness, dependence of squared returns, accommodation of the leverage effect) which appear to be important in achieving a good fit to market data.