This paper reports on the implementation of a pilot program aimed at improving student writing in a intermediate macroeconomics course. The Program attempted to reduce what is labelled the <i>expectations gap</i> between student and academic perceptions of what constitutes "good writing". This was done...

In this paper we consider the pricing of an American call option whose underlying asset dynamics evolve under the influence of two independent stochastic volatility processes of the Heston (1993) type. We derive the associated partial differential equation (PDE) of the option price using hedging...

This paper proposes an auxiliary particle filter algorithm for inference in regime switching stochastic volatility models in which the regime state is governed by a first-order Markov chain. We proposes an ongoing updated Dirichlet distribution to estimate the transition probabilities of the...

This paperc onsiders the problem o fnumerically evaluating barrier option prices when the dynamics of the underlying are driven by stochastic volatility following the square root process of Heston (1993). We develop a method of lines approach to evaluate the price as well as the delta and gamma...

This paper considers the problem of pricing American options when the dynamics of the underlying are driven by both stochastic volatility following a square root process as used by Heston (1993), and by a Poisson jump process as introduced by Merton (1976). Probability arguments are invoked to...

This paper presents a generalisation of McKean's free boundary value problem for American options by considering an American strangle position, where the early exercise of one side of the payoff will knock-out the out-of-the-money side. When attempting to evaluate the price of this American...

This paper considers a discrete-time model of a financial market with one risky asset and one risk-free asset, where the asset price and wealth dynamics are determined by the interaction of two groups of agents, fundamentalits and chartists. In each period each group allocates its wealth between...

This paper surveys some of the literature on American option pricing, in particular the representations of McKean (1965), Kim (1990) and Carr, Jarrow and Myneni (1992). It is proposed that the approach regarding the problem as a free boundary value problem, and solving this via incomplete...

A compound option (the mother option) gives the holder the right, but not obligation to buy (long) or sell (short) the underlying option (the daughter option). In this paper, we demonstrate a partial differential equation (PDE) approach to pricing American-type compound options where the...

This paper seeks to estimate a multifactor volatility model so as to describe the dynamics of interest rate markets, using data from the highly liquid but short term futures markets. The difficult problem of estimating such multifactor models is resolved by using a genetic algorithm to carry out...