This Paper analyses corporate bond valuation and optimal call and default rules when interest rates and firm value are stochastic. It then uses the results to explain the dynamics of hedging. Bankruptcy rules are important determinants of corporate bond sensitivity to interest rates and firm...

We study a continuous time model of a levered firm with fixed assets generating a cash flow that fluctuates with business conditions. Since external finance is costly, the firm holds a liquid (cash) reserve to help survive periods of poor business conditions. Holding liquid assets inside the...

The GM and Ford downgrade to junk status during May 2005 caused a wide-spread sell-off in their corporate bonds. Using a novel dataset, we document that this sell-off appears to have generated significant liquidity risk for market-makers, as evidenced in the significant imbalance in their quotes...

We develop a model for pricing risky debt and valuing credit derivatives that is easily calibrated to existing variables. Our approach is based on expanding the Heath-Jarrow-Morton (1990) term-structure model and its extension, the Das-Sundaram (2000) model to allow for defaultable debt with...

Political economists interested in discerning the effects of election outcomes on the economy have been hampered by the problem that economic outcomes also influence elections. We sidestep these problems by analyzing movements in economic indicators caused by clearly exogenous changes in...

Using a new dataset of currency option prices, we study the evolution of investor confidence in 1992-98 over the chance of individual currencies to converge to the euro. Convergence risk, which may reflect uncertainty over policy commitment as well as exogenous fundamentals, induces a level of...

Equity carve outs, the partial listing of a corporate subsidiary, appear to be transitory arrangements, usually dissolved within a few years by either a complete sale or a buy back. Why do firms perform expensive listings just to reverse them thereafter? We interpret carve outs as strategic...

The aim of this paper is to compare various methods which extract a Risk Neutral Density (RND) out of PIBOR, as well as of Notional interest rate futures options, and to investigate how traders react to a political event. We first focus on five dates surrounding the 1997 snap election and...

We build an equilibrium model with commodity producers that are averse to future cash flow variability, and hedge using futures contracts. Their hedging demand is met by financial intermediaries who act as speculators, but are constrained in risk-taking. Increases (decreases) in producers’...

We model the demand-pressure effect on prices when options cannot be perfectly hedged. The model shows that demand pressure in one option contract increases its price by an amount proportional to the variance of the unhedgeable part of the option. Similarly, the demand pressure increases the...