We analyze the role played by the boundary value for the sensitivity of the creditworthiness predictions in methodologies based on Merton [1974]. We run Monte-Carlo simulations with two various samples of firms - American, European - in order to build confidence intervals for the estimator of...

Market mechanisms are increasingly being used as a tool for allocating somewhat scarce but unpriced rights and resources, such as air and water. Tradable permits have emerged as the most cost effective measure leading to the emergence of both nationwide (SO2 ) and supranational (CO2 ) emission...

This paper derives an analytic expression for the distribution of the average volatility in the stochastic volatility model of Hull and White. This result answers a longstanding question, posed by Hull and White (Journal of Finance 42, 1987), whether such an analytic form exists. Our findings...

Natural catastrophes attract regularly the attention of media and have become a source of public concern. From a financial viewpoint, natural catastrophes represent idiosyncratic risks,diversifiable at the world level. But for reasons analyzed in this pap er reinsurance markets are unable to...

The wealth dynamics of insurance companies strongly depends on the success of their investment strategies, but also on liquidity shocks which occur during unfavorable years, when indemnities to be paid to the clients exceed collected premia. An investment strategy that does not take liquidity...

In this paper, we characterize explicitly the first derivative of the Value at Risk and the Expected Shortfall with respect to portfolio allocation when netting between positions exists. As a particular case, we examine a simple Gaussian example in order to illustrate the impact of netting...

We study a test statistic based on the integrated squared difference between a kernel estimator of the copula density and a kernel smoothed estimator of the parametric copula density. We show for fixed smoothing parameters that the test is consistent and that the asymptotic properties are driven...

We consider a nonparametric method to estimate copulas, i.e. functions linking joint distributions to their univariate margins. We derive the asymptotic properties of kernel estimators of copulas and their derivatives in the context of a multivariate stationary process satisfactory strong mixing...

In the existing literature on barrier options, much effort has been exerted to ensureconvergence through placing the barrier in close proximity to, or directly onto, thenodes of the tree lattice. In this paper we show that this may not be necessary toachieve accurate option price...

This paper complements theoretical studies on the Kelly rule in evolutionary finance by studying a Darwinian model of selection and reproduction in which the diversity of investment strategies is maintained through genetic programming. We find that investment strategies which optimize long-term...