We develop intuitive expressions for the spread between a forwardcontract and a similar futures contract taking into account the pos-sibility of counterparty default. We evaluate these expressions nu-merically and show that the forward-futures spread is significant forrealistic parameter...

Most derivative contracts are traded over-the-counter, i.e., bilaterally between two counterparties. Recently, clearing services have become available that allow to transfer over-the-counter derivatives to a central counterparty (clearing house). We develop a framework to determine the effects...

In recent years, industry loss warranties (ILWs) have become increasingly popular in the reinsurance market. The defining feature of ILW contracts is their dependence on an industry loss index. The use of an index reduces moral hazard and generally results in lower prices compared to...

This paper constructs a model for the evolution of a risky security that is consistent with a set of observed call option prices. It explicitly treats the fact that only a discrete data set can be observed in practice. The framework is general and allows for state dependent volatility and jumps....

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...

This paper considers multiple market agents who have distinct distributional opinions about the state price density. Different opinions can be contested on a hypothetical market that trades Arrow-Debreu securities. We focus on the situation when the agents are maximizing logarithmic utility as...

The paper contributes to the stochastic volatility literature by developing simulation schemes for the conditional distributions of the price of long term bonds and their variability based on non-standard distributional assumptions and volatility concepts; itillustrates the potential value of...

Commodity style-integration is appealing because by forming a unique long-short portfolio with simultaneous exposure to mildly correlated factors, a larger risk premium can be captured over time than with any of the underlying standalone styles. A practical decision that a commodity...

The current paper presents a short survey of stochastic models of risk control and dividend optimization techniques for a financial corporation. While being close to consumption/investment models of Mathematical Finance, dividend optimization models possess special features which do not allow...

The Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing states - roughly speaking - that the absence of arbitrage possibilities for a stochastic process S is equivalent to the existence of an equivalent martingale measure for S. It turns out that it is quite hard to give precise and sharp versions of this...