We introduce a novel class of term structure models for variance swaps. The multivariate state process is characterized by a quadratic diffusion function. The variance swap curve is quadratic in the state variable and available in closed form, greatly facilitating empirical analysis. Various...

We introduce the class of linear-rational term structure models in which the state price density is modeled such that bond prices become linear-rational functions of the factors. This class is highly tractable with several distinct advantages: i) ensures nonnegative interest rates, ii) easily...

We study American swaptions in the linear-rational (LR) term structure model introduced. The American swaption pricing problem boils down to an optimal stopping problem that is analytically tractable. It reduces to a free-boundary problem that we tackle by the local time-space calculus. We...

We develop a novel contract design, the fed funds futures (FFF) variance futures, which reflects the expected realized basis point variance of an underlying FFF rate. The valuation of short-term FFF variance futures is completely model-independent in a general setting that includes the cases...

Empirical evidence suggests that fixed income markets exhibit unspanned stochastic volatility (USV), that is, that one cannot fully hedge volatility risk solely using a portfolio of bonds. While Collin-Dufresne and Goldstein (2002) showed that no two-factor Cox-Ingersoll-Ross (CIR) model can...