Typically, three types of implied volatility smiles are seen in commodity options: the reverse skew, the smile, and the forward skew. I put forward an economic explanation for all three types of implied volatility smiles based on the idea that a commodity call option is valued in analogy with...

An analogy based call option pricing model is put forward. The model provides a new explanation for the implied volatility skew puzzle. The analogy model is consistent with empirical findings about returns from well studied option strategies such as covered call writing and zero-beta straddles....

People think by analogies and comparisons. Such way of thinking, termed coarse thinking by Mullainathan et al [Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2008] is intuitively very appealing. We derive a new option pricing formula based on the assumption that the market consists of coarse thinkers as...

Mullainathan et al [Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2008] present a formalization of the concept of coarse thinking in the context of a model of persuasion. The essential idea behind coarse thinking is that people put situations into categories and the values assigned to attributes in a...