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...

Given a market with a price process S populated by heterogeneous traders with differential information, beliefs, and trading constraints, let the smallest information set containing all of the traders' information be denoted F. This market is defined to be informationally efficient (Fama [2])...

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...

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...

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....

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...