The characteristic functions of many affine jump-diffusion models, such as Heston’s stochastic volatility model and all of its extensions, involve multivalued functions such as the complex logarithm. If we restrict the logarithm to its principal branch, as is done in most software packages,...

At the time of writing this article, Fourier inversion is the computational method of choice for a fast and accurate calculation of plain vanilla option prices in models with an analytically available characteristic function. Shifting the contour of integration along the complex plane allows for...

Estimation of the volatility of time series has taken off since the introduction of the GARCH and stochastic volatility models. While variants of the GARCH model are applied in scores of articles, use of the stochastic volatility model is less widespread. In this article

Estimation of the volatility of time series has taken off since the introduction of the GARCH and stochastic volatility models. While variants of the GARCH model are applied in scores of articles, use of the stochastic volatility model is less widespread. In this article it is argued that one...

When using an Euler discretisation to simulate a mean-reverting square root process, one runs into the problem that while the process itself is guaranteed to be nonnegative, the discretisation is not. Although an exact and efficient simulation algorithm exists for this process, at present this...

We present a new framework for the joint estimation of the default-free government term structure and corporate credit spread curves. By using a data set of liquid, German mark denominated bonds, we show that this yields more realistic spreads than traditionally obtained spread curves that...

Double barrier options have become popular instruments in derivative markets. Several papers have already analysed double knock-out call and put options using different methods. In a recent paper, Geman and Yor (1996) derive expressions for the Laplace transform of the double barrrier option...

The increasing availability of financial market data at intraday frequencies has not only led to the development of improved ex-post volatility measurements but has also inspired research into their potential value as an informa-tion source for longer horizon volatility forecasts. In this paper...

We construct models which enable a decision-maker to analyze the implications of typical time series patterns of daily exchange rates for currency risk management. Our approach is Bayesian where extensive use is made of Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The effects of several model...

In this paper we investigate whether the dynamic properties of the U.S. business cycle have changed in the last fifty years. For this purpose we develop a flexible business cycle indicator that is constructed from a moderate set of macroeconomic time series. The coincident economic indicator is...