This paper investigates the performance of international affine term structure models (ATSMs) that are driven by a mutual set of global state variables. We discuss which mixture of Gaussian and square root processes is best suited for modelling international bond markets. We derive necessary...

We study the behavior of real exchange rates in a two­country dynamic equilibrium model. In this model, consumers can only consume domestic goods but can invest costlessly in capital stocks of both countries. Nevertheless, transporting goods between the two countries is costly and, hence, the...

Credit risk models like Moody’s KMV are now well established in the market and give bond managers reliable estimates of default probabilities for individual firms. Until now it has been hard to relate those probabilities to the actual credit spreads observed on the market for corporate bonds....

Dynamic term structure models (DTSMs) price interest rate derivatives based on the model­ implied fair values of the yield curve, ignoring any pricing residuals on the yield curve that are either from model approximations or market imperfections. In contrast, option pricing in practice often...

The question of long-run predictability in the aggregate US stock market is still unsettled. This is due to the lack of a robust method to judge the statistical significance of long-run regressions under the maintained hypothesis. By developing a spectral theory of long-run regressions with both...

We propose a direct and robust method for quantifying the variance risk premium on financial assets. We theoretically and numerically show that the risk-neutral expected value of the return variance, also known as the variance swap rate, is well approximated by the value of a particular...

This paper considers a class of Heath-Jarrow-Morton (1992) term structure models, characterized by time deterministic volatilities for the instantaneous forward rate. The bias that arises from using observed futures yields as a proxy for the unobserved instantaneous forward rate is analyzed. The...

Prices of currency options commonly differ from the Black-Scholes formula along two dimensions: implied volatilities vary by strike price (volatility smiles) and maturity (implied volatility of at­the­money options increases, on average, with maturity). We account for both using Gram­Charlier...

We document a surprising pattern in market prices of S&P 500 index options. When implied volatilities are graphed against a standard measure of moneyness, the implied volatility smirk does not flatten out as maturity increases up to the observable horizon of two years. This behavior contrasts...

If pricing kernels are assumed non-negative then the inverse problem of finding the pricing kernel is well-posed. The constrained least squares method provides a consistent estimate of the pricing kernel. When the data are limited, a new method is suggested: relaxed maximization of the relative...