In a tractable stochastic volatility model, we identify the price of the smile as the price of the unspanned risks traded in SPX option markets. The price of the smile reflects two persistent volatility and skewness risks, which imply a downward sloping term structure of low-frequency variance...

The 1987 market crash was associated with a dramatic and permanent steepening of the implied volatility curve for equity index options, despite minimal changes in aggregate consumption. We explain these events within a general equilibrium framework in which expected endowment growth and economic...

We use a series of different approaches to extract information about crash risk from option prices for the Euro-Dollar exchange rate, with each step sharpening the focus on extracting more specific measures of crash risk around dates of ECB measures of Unconventional Monetary Policy. Several...

We employ the forward-looking implied dividend information contained in option prices to predict dividend cuts and omissions during the recent financial crisis. The large number of dividend cuts and omissions during the 2008-09 financial crisis period provides the opportunity to study the...

We show that the slight possibility of a macroeconomic disaster of moderate magnitude can explain important features across credit, option, and equity markets. Our consumption-based equilibrium model captures the empirical level and volatility of credit spreads, generates a flexible credit term...

We solve the pricing and hedging problem for the generic variance swap on a swap rate. The solution is not limited to a specifc swap rate model approximation. In order to address the absence of arbitrage constraints and to preserve the model complexity, we develop an alternative approach to swap...

Using daily options prices on the Eurostoxx 50 stock index over the whole year 2008, we compare the performance of three popular stochastic volatility models (Heston, 1993; Bates, 1996; Heston and Nandi, 2'007, in addition to the traditional Black-Scholes model and a proprietary trading desk model. We...

We investigate whether a model with time-varying probability of economic disaster can explain prices of collateralized debt obligations. We focus on senior tranches of the CDX, an index of credit default swaps on investment grade firms. These assets do not incur losses until a large fraction of...

This paper explores the contagious propagation of jumps among international stock market indices by exploiting a rich panel of stock and options data. We propose a multivariate option pricing model designed to allow for, but not superimpose, time and space amplification of jumps in option...