Abstract: In this paper we compare market prices of credit default swaps with model prices. We show that a simple reduced form model with a constant recovery rate outperforms the market practice of directly comparing bonds' credit spreads to default swap premiums. We find that the model works...

This paper deals with the question how an electricity end-consumer or distribution company should structure its portfolio with energy forward contracts. This paper introduces a one period framework to determine optimal positions in peak and off-peak contracts in order to purchase future...

A wide range of empirical biases hampers hedge fund databases. In this paper we focus upon survival-related biases and disentangle look-ahead biases due to self-selection of funds and due to fund termination. Self-selection arises because funds voluntarily report their information to data...

We derive an estimator for Black-Scholes-Merton implied volatility that, when compared to the familiar Corrado & Miller [JBaF, 1996] estimator, has substantially higher approximation accuracy and extends over a wider region of moneyness.

We explore the flow-performance interrelation by explicitly separating the investment and divestment decisions of hedge fund investors. The results show that different determinants and evaluation horizons underlie both decisions. While money inflows are sensitive to past long-run performance,...

We compare single factor Markov-functional and multi factor market models for hedging performance of Bermudan swaptions. We show that hedging performance of both models is comparable, thereby supporting the claim that Bermudan swaptions can be adequately riskmanaged with single factor models....

Hedge funds databases are typically subject to high attrition rates because of fund termination and self-selection. Even when all funds are included up to their last available return, one cannot prevent that ex post conditioning biases a.ect standard estimates of performance persistence. In this...

In this paper we present a new methodology to infer the implied risk-neutral distribution function from European-style options. We introduce a skewed version of the Student-t distribution, whose main advantage is that its shape depends on only four parameters, of which two directly control for...

Spot power prices exhibit extreme price jumps and the tendency to oscillate around a long-term mean. Despite these well-known characteristics, electricity price models used for Monte Carlo simulations, VaR related measures, or derivatives valuation, often assume normally distributed residuals....