Discretely sampled variance and volatility swaps trade actively in OTC markets. To price these swaps, the continuously sampled approximation is often used to simplify the computations. The purpose of this paper is to study the conditions under which this approximation is valid. Our first set of...

We develop a finite horizon continuous time market model, where risk averse investors maximize utility from terminal wealth by dynamically investing in a risk-free money market account, a stock written on a default-free dividend process, and a defaultable bond, whose prices are determined via...

We develop a tractable partial equilibrium model to analyze the impact on the bond market generated by a ban on naked credit default swaps (CDS). We demonstrate that such a ban will have a negligible impact on the borrowing costs if CDS speculators are risk averse and take positions which are...

This paper develops a dynamic equilibrium model where agents exhibit a strong form of belief heterogeneity: they disagree about zero probability events. It is shown that, somewhat surprisingly, equilibrium exists in this setting, and that the disagreement about nullsets naturally leads to...

A constrained informationally efficient market is defined to be one whose price process arises as the outcome of some equilibrium where agents face restrictions on trade. This paper investigates the case of short sale constraints, a setting which despite its simplicity, generates new insights....

The classical reduced-form and filtration expansion framework in credit risk is extended to the case of multiple, non-ordered defaults, assuming that conditional densities of the default times exist. Intensities and pricing formulas are derived, revealing how information driven default contagion...

Using more than two years of daily interest rate cap price data, this paper provides a systematic documentation of a volatility smile in cap prices. We find that Black (1976) implied volatilities exhibit an asymmetric smile (sometimes called a sneer) with a stronger skew for in-the-money caps...