We investigate incentive effects of a typical hedge-fund contract for a manager with power utility. With a one-year horizon, she displays risk-taking that varies dramatically with fund value. We extend the model to multiple yearly evaluation periods and find her risk-taking is rapidly moderated...

One of the central questions in financial economics is the determination of asset prices, such as the value of a stock. Over the past three decades, research on this topic has converged on a concept called the quot;state-price densityquot;. However, a puzzle has arisen. On the one hand, Cox,...

Rubinstein (1994) shows evidence of a significant time pattern in the shape of the volatility smile after the crash of 1987 and proposes an implied binomial tree approach to overcome the empirical limitations of the Black and Scholes model. This approach, and more generally the class of...

A relationship exists between aggregate risk-neutral and subjective probability distributions and risk aversion functions. We empirically derive risk aversion functions implied by option prices and realized returns on the Samp;P 500 index simultaneously. These risk aversion functions...

American options on the Samp;P 500 index futures that violate the stochastic dominance bounds of Constantinides and Perrakis (2007) from 1983 to 2006 are identified as potentially profitable trades. Call bid prices more frequently violate their upper bound than put bid prices do, while...

We document widespread violations of stochastic dominance by one-month Samp;P 500 index call options market over 1986-2006. These violations imply that a trader can improve her expected utility by engaging in a zero-net-cost trade. We allow the market to be incomplete and also imperfect by...

Numerous hedge funds stop reporting to commercial databases each year. An issue for hedge-fund performance estimation is: what delisting return to attribute to such funds? This would be particularly problematic if delisting returns are typically very different from continuing funds' returns. In...

This paper derives underlying asset risk-neutral probability distributions of European options on the Samp;P 500 index. Nonparametric methods are used to choose probabilities which minimize an objective function subject to requiring that the probabilities are consistent with observed option and...

An earlier article, quot;Implied Binomial Trees,quot; introduced a theoretical model for implying the stochastic process of an underlying asset price from the prices of associated options. This sequel provides details concerning application of the model to the full record of Samp;P 500 index...

American options on the S&P 500 index futures that violate the stochastic dominance bounds of Constantinides and Perrakis (2007) from 1983 to 2006 are identified as potentially profitable trades. Call bid prices more frequently violate their upper bound than put bid prices do, while violations...