We investigate the influence of various fundamental variables on a cross-section of credit default swap transaction data. Credit default swap rates can be seen as a superior proxy to credit risk than bond spreads are. Because we have transaction prices rather than quotes, we have thus...

We present a model in which a sovereign country optimally decides on its consumption and investment policies as well as on the optimal time to default. In the paper we allow the sovereign borrower to keep the fraction of its augmented wealth in so-called international reserves. We further assume...

In this paper it is shown that the space of stochastic integrals w.r. to a special semimartingal is closed and hence every square integrable random variable admits a best approximation in this space. In terms of financial economics this means that for every contingent claim there exists a...

pagehe problem of term structure of interest rates modelling is considered in a continuous-time framework. The emphasis is on the bond prices, forward bond prices or LIBOR rates, rather than on the instantaneous rates as in the traditional models. Forward and spot probability measures are...

Let S=(S_t), t=0,1,...,T (T being finite), be an adapted R^d-valued process. Each component process of S might be interpreted as the price process of a certain security. A trading strategy H=(H_t), t= 1,...,T, is a predictable R^d-valued process. A strategy H is called extreme if it represents a...

We consider option pricing when dynamic portfolios are discretely rebalanced. The portfolio adjustments only occur after ¯xed relative changes in the stock price. The stock price follows a marked point process and the market is incomplete. We first characterisethe equivalent martingale...

The aim of the paper is to analyse the effects of different model specifications, within a general nested framework, on the valuation of defaultable bonds, and some credit derivatives. Assuming that the primitive variables such as the risk-free short rate, and the credit spread are affine...

We study the effect of secondary markets on equity-linked life insurance contracts with surrender guarantees. The policyholders are assumed to be boundedly rational in giving up their contracts, and a proportion of policyholders will access the secondary markets instead of surrendering the...

We study the valuation and hedging of unit-linked life insurance contracts in a setting where mortality intensity is governed by a stochastic process. We focus on model risk arising from different specifications for the mortality intensity. To do so we assume that the mortality intensity is...

The effect of model and parameter misspecification on the effectiveness of Gaussian hedging strategies for derivative financial instruments is analyzed, showing that Gaussian hedges in the `natural'' hedging instruments are particularly robust. This is true for all models that imply...