This thesis examines the pricing of volatility on organized U.S. options exchanges from October 31, 2005 through November 1, 2007. The research is motivated in part by the rapid growth of hedge funds that trade volatility and in part by the growing importance that the financial markets place on...

This dissertation consists of four essays on pricing fixed income derivatives and risk management. The first essay presents pricing and duration formulas for floating rate bonds and interest rate swaps with embedded options. It combines Briys et al.'s approximation with the extended Vasicek term...

A growing body of evidence has accumulated on the behavior of volatility for pricing data on a variety of different financial assets. Twenty-four-hour currency markets are a particularly useful vehicle for examining the relationship between information and asset volatility--in part because the...

This dissertation (consisting of two essays) analyzes the impact of policy measures used to control the risk-taking behavior of banks. Specifically, the first essay explores the impact of increasing the required minimum capital to asset ratios on the riskiness of banks' assets. The second essay...

This dissertation develops efficient lattice procedures for pricing American options under stochastic volatility models, and stochastic volatility models extended with jumps in asset returns. It also develops the framework for building lattices for stochastic volatility models extended with...

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 58-02, Section: A, page: 0539.

This dissertation consists of two essays on diversification benefits, return characteristics, and the performance of U.S.-based global government bond mutual funds. The first essay examines: (i) the performance of U.S.-based global government bond funds, (ii) the benefits of inclusion of...