In this paper we propose the optimum weighting scheme for pricing American options under a local volatility model. American options are priced under the constant elasticity of variance volatility model using Monte Carlo simulation. The residuals obtained from regression were heteroscedastic. For...

A common feature of financial time series is their strong persistence. Yet, long memory may just be the spurious effect of either structural breaks or slow switching regimes. So far, five testing procedures have been proposed to distinguish between true and spurious long memory. The tests are...

We derive analytic series representations for European option prices in polynomial stochastic volatility models. This includes the Jacobi, Heston, Stein-Stein, and Hull-White models, for which we provide numerical case studies. We find that our polynomial option price series expansion performs...

The transformed-data maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method for struc- tural credit risk models developed by Duan (1994) is extended to account for the fact that observed equity prices may have been contaminated by trading noises. With the presence of trading noises, the likelihood function...

This chapter deals with the estimation of risk neutral distributions for pricing index options resulting from the hypothesis of the risk neutral valuation principle. After justifying this hypothesis, we shall focus on parametric estimation methods for the risk neutral density functions...

A Lévy process is observed at time points of distance delta until time T. We construct an estimator of the Lévy-Khinchine characteristics of the process and derive optimal rates of convergence simultaneously in T and delta. Thereby, we encompass the usual low- and high-frequency assumptions...

Observing prices of European put and call options, we calibrate exponential Lévy models nonparametrically. We discuss the implementation of the spectral estimation procedures for Lévy models of finite jump activity as well as for self-decomposable Lévy models and improve these methods....

Confidence intervals and joint confidence sets are constructed for the nonparametric calibration of exponential Lévy models based on prices of European options. This is done by showing joint asymptotic normality for the estimation of the volatility, the drift, the intensity and the Lévy...

Equity basket correlation is an important risk factor. It characterizes the strength of linear dependence between assets and thus measures the degree of portfolio diversification. It can be estimated both under the physical measure from return series, and under the risk neutral measure from...