We study the relation between option-implied skewness (IS) and the cross-section of option returns under daily hedging to better understand the pricing of skewness in isolation from lower moments. Creating portfolios of delta-hedged (D-hedged) and delta-vega-hedged (DV-hedged) options with daily...

Comparisons are made of the CBOE skew index with those derived from parametric skews of bilateral gamma models and from the differentiation of option implied characteristic exponents. Discrepancies may be attributed to strike discretization in evaluating prices of powered returns. The remedy...

This thesis investigates the predictive power of the Skewness and Kurtosis Adjusted Black Scholes model of Corrado and Su (1996) (CS) model in pricing three Australian option contracts (ANZ, BHP and CBA) maturing in March, June, September and December, during the 2007/2008 financial crisis...

We nest multiple volatility components, fat tails and a U-shaped pricing kernel in a single option model and compare their contribution to describing returns and option data. All three features lead to statistically significant model improvements. A U-shaped pricing kernel is economically most...

The selection of an appropriate parameterization of data is a fundamental step in a majority of empirical research effort. Likewise, detecting or estimating features of non-stationarities in data sequences is a critical point in conducting credible research that uses data for inference. In this...

This is the first study on the risk-neutral distribution of option returns. We derive solutions for the risk-neutral variance, skewness, and kurtosis of call and put option returns and document several properties of these ex-ante moments. We find that the volatility, skewness, and kurtosis of...

This paper introduces a structural credit default model that is based on a hyper-exponential jump diffusion process for the value of the firm. For credit default swap prices and other quantities of interest, explicit expressions for the corresponding Laplace transforms are derived. As an...

This paper revisits the pricing of options, in a context of financial stress, when the underlying asset's returns displays skewness and excess kurtosis. For that purpose, we use a Cornish-Fisher transformation for valuing option contracts with an exact formula allowing for heavy-tails.An...