Market clichés assert that markets take escalators up and elevators down. The observation suggests differentiating models for up and down moves. Non-diffusive models allow for this and we model the move as the difference of two independent mean reverting increasing processes driven by gamma...

Return distributions in the class of pure jump limit laws are observed to reflect numerous asymmetries between the upward and downward motions of asset prices. The return distributions are modeled by self decomposable parametric laws with all parameters continuously responding to each other....

Distortions introduced by limited liability towards higher volatility and kurtosis, increased liability skewness, reduced asset skewness and an incentive to decorrelate assets from liabilities are demonstrated in the context of a stylized model. The concept of acceptable risks operationalized by...

We contrast two different asset pricing models, where the pricing kernel either (i) increases in the volatility dimension, reflecting investors' aversion to volatility, or (ii) could be non-monotonic in volatility, reflecting heterogeneity in investors' beliefs. The two models yield opposite...

We propose a model of volatility tail behavior, in which the pricing measure dominates the physical measure in both tails of the volatility distribution and, hence, the derived pricing kernel exhibits an increasing and decreasing region in the volatility dimension. The model features investors...

Statistical theory has been relatively absent in the exercise of estimating parameters of an option pricing model from cross-sectional data at a fixed point of calendar time. The cross-sectional data typically consists of prices for options at various strikes and maturities at market close. The...

We propose a new way to conduct multiple hypothesis testing in economics research. Our framework allows for correlation among tests and incomplete data, both of which are prevalent in economic meta-analysis. Our simulations show that that our method is able to produce the correct p-value cutoff...

Single factor asset pricing models face two major hurdles: the problematic time-series properties of the ex ante market risk premium and the inability of the risk measure to account for a substantial degree of the cross-sectional variation of expected excess returns. We provide an explanation...

We present a framework for modeling and estimating dynamics of variance and skewness from time-series data using a maximum likelihood approach assuming that the errors from the mean have a non-central conditional t distribution. We parameterize conditional variance and conditional skewness in an...

If asset returns have systematic skewness, expected returns should include rewards for accepting this risk. We formalize this intuition with an asset pricing model which incorporates conditional skewness. Our results show that conditional skewness helps explain the cross-sectional variation of...