the pricing of European-style foreign currency options and for the volatility strike structure implicit in these contracts … is devoloped. The curvature of the volatility strike structure is explained by focusing attention on the expected … characteristic convex shape of volatility strike structures documented in the empirical literature. A volatility-based test for …

period to alter either the level or the volatility of the $/DM spot rate is examined. Volatility quotes implicit in foreign …

We compared forecasts of stock market volatility based on real-time and revised macroeconomic data. To this end, we … used a new dataset on monthly real-time macroeconomic variables for Germany. The dataset covers the period 1994-2005. We … used a statistical, a utility-based, and an options-based criterion to evaluate volatility forecasts. Our main result is …