For environmental problems such as global warming future costs must be balanced against present costs. This is traditionally done using an exponential function with a constant discount rate, which reduces the present value of future costs. The result is highly sensitive to the choice of discount...

Financial markets provide an ideal frame for the study of crossing or first-passage time events of non-Gaussian correlated dynamics mainly because large data sets are available. Tick-by-tick data of six futures markets are herein considered resulting in fat tailed first-passage time...

We solve the escape problem for the Heston random diffusion model. We obtain exact expressions for the survival probability (which ammounts to solving the complete escape problem) as well as for the mean exit time. We also average the volatility in order to work out the problem for the return...

We study the exponential Ornstein-Uhlenbeck stochastic volatility model and observe that the model shows a multiscale behavior in the volatility autocorrelation. It also exhibits a leverage correlation and a probability profile for the stationary volatility which are consistent with market...

We compare the most common SV models such as the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU), the Heston and the exponential OU (expOU) models. We try to decide which is the most appropriate one by studying their volatility autocorrelation and leverage effect, and thus outline the limitations of each model. We add...

We solve the first-passage problem for the Heston random diffusion model. We obtain exact analytical expressions for the survival and hitting probabilities to a given level of return. We study several asymptotic behaviors and obtain approximate forms of these probabilities which prove, among...

High frequency data in finance have led to a deeper understanding on probability distributions of market prices. Several facts seem to be well stablished by empirical evidence. Specifically, probability distributions have the following properties: (i) They are not Gaussian and their center is...

We present a detailed study on the mean first-passage time of volatility processes. We analyze the theoretical expressions based on the most common stochastic volatility models along with empirical results extracted from daily data of major financial indices. We find in all these data sets a...

The analysis which assumes that tick by tick data is linear may lead to wrong conclusions if the underlying process is multiplicative. We compare data analysis done with the return and stock differences and we study the limits within the two approaches are equivalent. Some illustrative examples...

We study the pricing problem for a European call option when the volatility of the underlying asset is random and follows the exponential Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model. The random diffusion model proposed is a two-dimensional market process that takes a log-Brownian motion to describe price dynamics...